Quote:
Originally Posted by H2O
Agreed. If money were no object it would be better spent upgrading the Pleasant Valley Bridge for the rapid bus line. It will primarily serve transit dependent low income/minority riders that do not have a need to go Downtown. The Blue and Orange lines will serve most going Downtown regardless of their demographic profile.
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Even if it were free, there's a danger that its very existence would lead to a non-optimal network design for the bus system. That after going to the trouble of constructing an extra wide bridge with bus lanes, CM would feel political or other pressure to make use of it (above and beyond routes that actually make sense).
And since CM's operating budget is severely constrained, this would result in worse service overall (though improved for some minority of riders).
There's very, very few trips that actually see significant benefit from a bus crossing there, especially compared to other geographic locations.
Say you're coming into/out of downtown from directly south. Does this bridge help, no not really, you're better off taking the orange line. It's faster and more frequent.
coming into/out of downtown from the SW? You're probably better off taking either a bus route that hypothetically crosses a bus bridge further west (~S 1st) or riding an E/W connecting line and then transferring to the Orange.
Okay, best case scenario, you're SE of downtown. Far enough out, you're again better off riding e/w and then transferring to the orange, rather than slogging through traffic _almost_ all the way (except the bridge itself). Or if you're riding from SE to E, once you're far enough out you're better crossing at PV (with hopefully bus only lanes). Or some new bus only crossing between 35 and PV.
Even if there's a low frequency coverage route directly overlaying the Blue (remnant of the 20) in most cases you're better off riding that just a short distance and then transferring to the Blue at the next common station.
If it existed, sure routes would use it. Late night after the light rail shuts down (night owl and such) sure. But the overall benefit then is pretty low (less traffic) and not many riders to benefit. Any potential benefit of a crossing there is hurt even more by there not being a N/S arterial between Congress and 35.
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