Edmonton councillors will consider bus rapid transit, or BRT, as a short term solution for a city-wide LRT network that could be decades away from completion.
On Wednesday, a report will be presented to councillors proposing BRT, whereby specific buses would get dedicated lanes in an effort to avoid traffic snarls.
The buses would also be higher capacity and would see fares collected before boarding in an effort to cut back on idling time at each stop.
“I’ve long felt that we should be delivering pre-cursor rapid bus service of some kind that telegraphs where LRT service is going to go into the future,” says Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson.
According to the report, costs for BRT are lower than LRT – one U.S. study found the average capital cost per mile for buses was $13.5 million as opposed to LRT costs of $34.8 million.
Mayor Iveson said it’s an option worth considering.
“Though we can’t ignore serving those low density areas, a little more of our resources need to be going into serving those higher yield, higher efficiency transit corridors where LRT will eventually go,” he explained.
BRT service has already been introduced in Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Ottawa.
Three previous reports suggesting BRT were presented to the City of Edmonton between 1999 and 2007.
With files from Breanna Karstens-Smith
