Capital New York

JK commented on Why New York City has a second-tier bus system

Mr Giles has it backwards. The MTA is spending billions building the Second Ave subway because it was easier to do that politically than create a true BRT line in the same corridor. Spending borrowed billions is is cheaper politically than paying the cost of reallocating the cost of the street space on First and Second Ave. BRT would have cost one tenth as much as the subway, and much less time to build. But, true BRT isn't going to work in many places unless NYC has a road pricing system in place to reduce peak hour traffic on the busiest streets --- like First and Second which carry enormous traffic from the free Queensboro Bridge. And, NYC has a political system able to take on established entitlements --- like the overwhelming allocation of public road space to private cars. Despite the bellowing at the Post, the Bloomberg administration has taken only a tiny amount of arterial road space, and none where it would potentially create peak-hour motor vehicle problems. There is no feared bus passenger lobby in NYC to counteract the angry merchants and other drivers unwilling to cede an inch of the public road space they have effectively appropriated. We do not have a government that provides the greatest good for the greatest number. If we did, BRT would be everywhere.

Posted on November 21st, 2012 1:13pm