T touts rapid bus transit as wave of future

But some say service is cheap alternative

By Anthony Flint, Globe Staff, 10/20/2003

After decades of huge investment in subway and commuter rail service, the MBTA is heralding a new era being dubbed the "decade of the bus."

The agency plans to spend half a billion dollars to purchase 578 cleaner buses to replace older diesel-burning models, set up maintenance facilities, and even install global positioning satellite systems so buses do not bunch up and come all at once.

General manager Michael Mulhern considers bus travel an important but neglected part of the transit system and touts souped-up service called "bus rapid transit," which is designed to be as reliable as trains, as the wave of the future.

But the emphasis on buses is setting off concern in urban areas where residents have been waiting for years for subway expansions. Many fear that state transportation planners are eyeing bus service as a cheap alternative to rail service, at a time when transit funding is scarce.

Most riders prefer subways or light rail trolleys, on fixed tracks and with stations that make it easy to step into the vehicles, transit advocates say. A handful of "bus rapid transit" systems are in place around the country, but they attract the most riders when the vehicles are separated from other traffic in dedicated lanes and tunnels.

Building those dedicated lanes in dense urban areas like Boston, however, is complicated and expensive, raising the specter of sleeker-looking buses that get stuck in traffic just as the current vehicles do.

T officials insist that they are just trying to spruce up bus service and are not seeking to substitute bus for rail in future expansions.

"We don't come into this as an excuse not to extend rail service or do better with rail service," Mulhern said in a recent interview. "The fact is, little or no effort has been made to keep the bus network abreast with changes in technology and service management techniques, and we're going to change that."

Mulhern said his aim is to make life better for the 40 percent of transit riders -- about 375,000 people -- who use buses for some portion of their daily commute, and to improve air quality and customer service in those neighborhoods that rely on buses.

The investment comes after $1.5 billion was spent on subways in the 1980s, and $2 billion on suburban commuter rail in the 1990s, according to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

Bus service has been offered as a cheaper substitute for rail service, starting with the Silver Line, which replaced the elevated Orange Line on Washington Street. Silver Line buses run along a lane painted onto the street and have to contend with occasional traffic in the lane and drivers crossing the lane to park their cars.

Riders on the Silver Line continue to say that train service would be more efficient.

State transportation planners say that the fully built Silver Line, from Roxbury to South Station and on to Logan International Airport, could eliminate the need for a Red and Blue line connector since airport-bound riders will be able to change for the Silver Line at South Station.

The T also wanted to run a bus rapid transit system down Centre Street in Jamaica Plain instead of trolleys for the proposed restoration of the Arborway line; only a ruling from the state environmental secretary prompted the T to drop the bus plan and focus on rail.

And in Somerville, some worry that bus rapid transit will be pitched as a substitute for the long-awaited $375 million Green Line extension from Lechmere to Union Square and on to West Medford.

"People appreciate the effort to improve bus service, but buses alone leaves us with what we have now -- commuter rail running through without stopping, and the densest city in the Commonwealth and no rail transit," said Wig Zamore, a transit advocate in Somerville who has pushed for the Green Line extension and a new Orange Line stop at Assembly Square.

Romney administration officials have said recently that the state does not have enough money for major transit projects. Bus systems can cost half as much as rail, as is the case with the Silver Line and Arborway, according to the T. The Urban Ring, the proposed circumferential transit route around Boston, would cost six times as much with rail as with buses.

Buses are not always cheaper, however. Building dedicated busways to guarantee faster service can be very expensive, especially when they involved bringing the buses underground for stretches of the route.

The T wants to eventually spend nearly $1 billion to build a tunnel connecting Silver Line buses from Washington Street to the Green Line station at Boylston Street and under Chinatown to South Station.

Efforts to build bus lines may also hit legal roadblocks: The Green Line extension, Red-Blue line connector, and Arborway trolleys are all commitments the state made in exchange for building the Big Dig. To substitute those rail projects with buses, the state must meet tough standards: showing that rail is impossible from an engineering point of view and that buses will improve air quality as much as trains would.

"They can't just say, `We're broke,' " said Stephanie Pollack, a transportation specialist at the Conservation Law Foundation, the group that forced the state to make the commitments tied to the Big Dig more than 10 years ago. The state should stay focused on rail and redirect capital funds from highway accounts to pay for it, she said. "Buses get stuck in traffic, they can't move large numbers of people at peak hours, and they don't leverage development," she said.

Bus rapid transit systems appear to work best when the vehicles run in their own lane, physically separated from traffic, like the system in Curitiba, Brazil, transit planners say. Some cities have opted for light rail instead.

But Mulhern said that given fiscal and logistical realities in Boston, a Silver Line-style bus route is more practical than light rail.

Skepticism runs deep, however, among riders. At Somerville's Union Square on a recent morning, Eliza Rigby and Cherie Cere, both of Cambridge, stood waiting for the No. 91 bus, due at 11 a.m. but nowhere in sight.

"If they show us proof it would work better, then maybe," Rigby said of improved bus service. As it is now, she said, buses get stuck in traffic so frequently that she sometimes jumps on the first bus that comes, regardless of its destination -- the crosstown bus to Kendall Square so she can hop on the Red Line to Central Square.

As she spoke, the Central Square-bound No. 91 finally appeared, rumbling down Washington Street surrounded by cars, half an hour late.

Anthony Flint can be reached at flint@globe.com.