Nostrand Ave. in NYC is also mentioned, and it's not fixed guideway either

Possibly, the project has dedicated lanes for HOV, tolled, and BRT, but not exclusively for BRT. Shoulders will also be utilized for exclusive use by BRT.

But, projects like Seattle's RapidRide are listed and do not have sole-use lanes. I think it's a case of some projects just being missed.

Okay, chalk it up to East Coast bias.

BRT is such a loosely-defined term, however, that if you had to list all the projects that are pitched as "BRT", the list would be quite long. Relatively few systems in the US approach the service quality of "true" BRT systems in Latin America.

^Very true. Half of these projects being called BRT are nothing more than regular bus service in most major cities.

Are there images or other renderings of what this thing is supposed to look like, particular of the system where shoulders will be used for bus-exclusive lanes? I'm trying to get my former municipality to include bus lanes in their push to widen Pennsylvania 51 south of the city of Pittsburgh...

In any event, I, too, thought this discussion was exclusively for "rail..." :shrug:

The MBTA Green line hasn't even broken ground yet and is still in the air...why is it listed?

Neither has the Confederation line in Ottawa....according to a transit friend up there....so hes adding projects that aren't even through the bidding process yet...:(

new and opening in 2015
the Ft Lauderdale Wave Train will also connect
with the All Aboard Florida station in downtown ft lauderdale.....

and new Bus Rapid Transit stations going west to the arena.

That was brought up in the comments on the Transport Politic blog. MBTA did award Phase 1 construction contracts to rebuild a bridge and ROW prep demolition work. MBTA has also awarded a advanced PE & final design contract. So there is some construction starting on the Green Line extension, the question is whether it really qualifies as formally starting construction while MA and the MBTA are waiting for federal funding and assembling state funding for the project. While dealing with the debt burden from the Big Dig.

Denver-Boulder's US 36 BRT may have been overlooked, simply because it's taking express regional bus routes and evolving them in three separate phases, into BRT. It won't really be BRT, until phase 3 is complete. Currently phase 1 is complete, phase 2 is funded and under construction and phase 3 is not funded fully or under construction. Right now, it's more like enhanced rapid bus service. Eventually it will be more like true BRT. All-in-all, the denver-Boulder BRT line is actually one of the most subtantial BRT projects in America, when looked at over all three of it's planned phases...

The US 36 BRT Denver-Boulder corridor was guided in the planning stages, by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), which is the world leader in advocating, planning and designing proper BRT lines. The ITDP held the position that optimal BRT between Denver-Boulder, would use fully dedicated BRT lanes, but that shared dedicated/managed lanes would be acceptable, especially if the highway shoulders were also used during peak times for dedicated auxiliary BRT lanes.

This concession to the plan, had to be made, in order to PAY for the project via a return in tolls collected for motorist using the dedicated managed lanes. This opens up PPP funding and financing options for securing a long term lease for a company to Operate-Finance-Build-Maintain the managed lanes.

But also, according to ITDP, there are several other main factors required to build a successful "true" BRT line.

1.) Obviously dedicated lanes are optimal--Managed lanes are acceptable & Auxiliary dedicated bus lanes utilizing highway shoulders during peak times, further mitigates the negatives of not being fully BRT dedicated lanes. US 36 BRT falls just shy of "optimal" but does comply with the alternative.

2.) True BRT should be built around a BRT spine, where most of the infrastructure is placed, including rail-like permanent stations which diverge little or none at all, from the BRT lanes. US 36 BRT is a BRT spine, with permanent, rail-like stations and even some shared transfer stations with the NW commuter rail. The stations are not optimally placed in the medium of the highway (do to high cost), but are placed right off the highway and special slip-ramps where designed and built to facilitate this.

3.) From the main BRT spine, other bus routes and smaller, city street running BRT feeder buses, should operate to feed passengers into the core BRT spine stations. Like as with bus routes feeding passengers into rail stations. yes, a forced transfer, but it makes the BRT operate and feel like a mass transit line, instead of a bus line. US 36 BRT also will accomplish this.

4.) It's also recommended that a BRT corridor be multi-modal. The US 36 BRT corridor has a bike path it's entire length, which will also serve each BRT station. And at every BRT station, there are pedestrian bridges across the highway, allowing access to/from destinations on either side of US 36. There will also be large park-n-ride facilities at several of the major BRT stations, allowing commuters to drive to the station, then take the BRT into downtown Denver Union Station, or into Downtown Boulder's large bus terminal station (or any other station along the line).

Here's Phase 2 details:

Project Boundaries
Federal Boulevard to 88th Street in Louisville/Superior.
Project Elements
The US 36 Express Lanes Project is a multimodal project led by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT), Colorado High Performance Transportation Enterprise (HPTE), and Regional Transportation District (RTD) to reconstruct 10 miles of US 36 from Federal Boulevard to 88th Street in Louisville/Superior.

The project will:
• Add an express lane in each direction of US
36 for Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), High
Occupancy Vehicles (HOV) and tolled Single
Occupancy Vehicles (SOV);
• Reconstruct existing pavement on US 36 and
widen the highway to accommodate 12-foot
inside and outside shoulders;
• Replace the Wadsworth Parkway, Wadsworth
Boulevard (at 112th Avenue), and Sheridan
Boulevard bridges, and the US 36 bridges
over Lowell Boulevard and the Burlington
Northern Santa Fe Railway;
• Add BRT improvements, including new
electronic display signage at stations and bus
priority improvements at ramps. The improve-
ments also will allow buses to operate on the
shoulders of US 36 and between interchanges
to decrease bus travel time.
• Install Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
for tolling, transit, traveler information, and
incident management;
• Install a separate commuter bikeway along
much of the corridor; and
• Improve RTD stations along the corridor,
including new canopies with enhanced
weather protection.

The map is huge in size, so I'm posting it in a separate post:
http://www.coloradodot.info/projects...2712.jpg/image

Below is a link, which shows how the Boulder-Denver US 36 BRT stations are being built. Keep in mind, the buses will use the two middle managed access lanes and have to weave across open lanes to exit slip ramps at stations, then merge back across open lanes to get back into the managed express lanes. This defect is a result of limited funding. However, as a solution, new 12 foot wide shoulders will be built and buses will have exclusive usage of these shoulders as well. So if traffic is too thick to get back to the middle managed access lanes, they can just stay on the shoulder all the way to the next station.

Here's a shot of the new Broomfield BRT station being built (halfway between Denver and Boulder):

https://maps.google.com/?ll=39.90632...04128&t=h&z=19

Well, the title of the thread is List of US rail transit currently u/c. US-36 wasn't overlooked so much as it doesn't qualify.

I agree, wasn't advocating for it to be included on your list. There was a conversation going on about that map fflint posted, which didn't include some BRT projects, but included others. Specifically, some where wondering why it didn't show Denver's BRT on the map. I think it should be included. For USA standards when it comes to BRT, it's actually fairly good. I speculate Denver's BRT was left off that map posted by fflint, because of uncertainty as to when Phase 3 will be funded and completed (as phase 3 will be the icing on the cake, that really make it become more than just a glorified express bus line, with better covered stations, electronic bus arrival information, terminals at Denver Union Station underground bus terminal and in Boulder's bus terminal, etc...). That map only shows projects fully funded and with definite completion dates.

Too bad they're not building direct access ramps in the median like Houston has. They don't look too expensive...

http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freewaymgmt/...ages/fig14.jpg
src

The Jane Addams Tollway outside Chicago is planned to have a mix of the two station types.

Is it just me, or it highway-based BRT totally unattractive as a transit service? By its very nature, a highway BRT station cannot attract TOD, so it's always destined to connect nowhere to nowhere. If the "last mile" is an issue in cities, it's gotta be worse out in office park suburbia. I honestly don't know who rides these things, unless they're connecting to rail transit or going to a downtown area.

Elevated ramps from the medium (like that), is something I could see being added in the future, when more funding becomes available. Also, the US 36 BRT will connect downtown Boulder to downtown Denver (two major employment centers and university/academic centers), plus another major employment center between Denver and Boulder at Interlocken in Broomfield (that BRT stop already has a major TOD under development and uses BRT dedicated slip ramps instead of queue-jumps). In addition, it will also have several shared stations with the NW EMU commuter rail line, so it will also feed riders into the rail transit system. And in Boulder, the buses will split off two ways at Boulder's planned TOD transit village, to help close that "last-mile" issue (one branch going to University of Colorado-Boulder and another going on to the major downtown Boulder transit station, which is a hub station for a very solid Boulder bus system).

No, it's far from perfect. It was originally supposed to be absolutely, "true BRT." However, it's not a project funded separably. It was funded jointly as part of Denver's ~$7 billion FasTracks program, which ran into steep budget shortfalls when the recession hit, sales tax growth slowed dramatically from projections and material prices sky-rocketed. RTD Denver has a plan to "enhance and expand" this BRT line in the future, if a new sales tax is passed to boost FasTracks funding.

Guys, I know it somehow got off topic about BRT construction because it's "fixed guideway", however, this really is a rail transit thread. Can somebody create a new thread for BRT and get back on topic in this thread? Or rename the thread "fixed guideway", but we are getting completely off topic of the thread name. I'd like to read more on rail transit when entering a rail transit thread; and I'm sure others would to.

I agree, it's become off topic. I came along and made it worse. Right about where fflint posted that map of transit projects across America, the conversation became about BRT.

The first segment of Charlotte's streetcar line is starting construction. Already there are several blocks with the rails already in the roadway:
http://intransitnews.com/wp-content/...mile-route.jpg

The extension of the light rail Blue line breaks ground in Sept.

The Loyola streetcar line in New Orleans will open in a matter of days. Crews are rushing to complete testing and punchlist before the Super Bowl.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8079/8...988f5103_z.jpg