Eugene’s EmX: Bus Rapid Transit as it shouldn’t be

Is Eugene’s Bus Rapid Transit system, EmX, a model for how to build such transit lines? Only if outward appearances matter more than function.

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) bemuses me. For years, I have watched as bus manufacturers invented a new way of marketing their products as being a lower cost alternative to rail transit systems. BRT was touted as in every way just as good as rail, but at less cost. Although I am a frequent bus rider and an advocate for improving transit, I believed the entire BRT trend was all so much window dressing. Worse, it was being used as a cudgel against rail projects by anti-rail transit activists who found that they could get more credibility with the public if they dressed themselves in the clothing of being pro-bus.

It should come as no surprise, then, that when Eugene opened its own BRT line, EmX, in 2009, that riding it was not a priority. It should also not be a surprise that I was prepared to be underwhelmed.

Over the last year or so, however, I have softened a little on BRT. While I still hold to my criticisms of it, I also see that there could be uses for it as well. For example, BRT might make a lot of sense as a feeder, extending the reach of a rail system into areas where the capacity and scale of rail might be too great. I also could see a role for an BRT system for agencies that do not have the wherewithal to start a rail system yet. High capacity busses have always been appealing to me — I love the articulated trolley-coaches of Seattle and Vancouver, and often feel that TriMet could use some larger vehicles for their more popular frequent service routes.

So when, this Spring, I had an opportunity to ride EmX at long last, I was hoping that I would be pleasantly surprised, and find a model for BRT that might be applicable elsewhere. Instead, I found that the system confirmed every worst fear I had. This is especially true for two main critiques: that it is, essentially, a fake rail system that will do little to attract choice riders, and that it is not even a good working example of BRT.

Outside: sleek and pretty. Inside? Set from a bad sci-fi torture scene.

Shiny on the outside, terrible on the inside. Like most BRT systems, EmX has busses that look pretty from the outside. The equipment has a streamlined look that reminds me a little of the 1930s PCC streetcars. (Ironically the PCC car was designed to look more like a bus.) They look very modern and sleek. While I bristle a bit at the fender skirts hiding the wheels and other touches clearly meant to mock the look of a rail vehicle, I can almost forgive such foolery because the overall effect is attractive. Nothing erodes critique like success, after all.

On the inside, though? Disappointing. Even setting aside the poor choice of colors (a depressing mix of middle grays and muddy greens) and the patches of exposed metal, the vehicle had such an odd mixture of seating locations and combinations. A long set of seats sits high over the central wheel wells, so that passengers there appear to be waiting for a shoe shine. Aisles feel narrow as a result of this squashed arrangement as well. The articulated section — which was unlined on the inside and was rapidly collecting dirt in its accordion folds — held a pair of seats to each side, backlit by two florescent tubes, looking more like an execution chair set from Logan’s Run than anyplace I’d want to sit for a ride. Worst of all were the bike accommodations. Bikes stand in one group, three deep, parallel to the wall. It’s like triple parking; if your bike is a the back, you’d better get the first two out of the way first, or you’re trapped.

Strangely, the dedicated busway only exists in front of the University of Oregon.

It barely qualifies as BRT at all. BRT generally means that busses have their own right-of-way, and EmX was touted as being no exception. Through downtown Eugene, however, EmX operates on surface streets with little discernible signal priority. The private right-of-way — aka designated EmX only lanes — doesn’t begin until the line hits Franklin Boulevard in front of the campus of the University of Oregon. Even here, the signal systems seem incomprehensible; at one location the EmX signals even displayed a clear indication to proceed while perpendicular traffic had a green light. Given that there was no traffic light for EmX, it was only that the bus driver was paying attention that kept us from entering the intersection.

The busway segment on Franklin, strangely, is not two-lane, but rather single, requiring busses to meet at designated points. This despite the fact that there appears to have been sufficient right-of-way to make it two lane in all places. Was this decision really worth it to save a few dollars on the margin? Strangely — or perhaps not so strangely — the busway segment ends at the eastern edge of the UO campus, and EmX must then negotiate a lane change from the center lanes of the road to the outside edge, through mixed traffic. From here into Springfield, where the initial EmX line ends, there is no signal priority, no dedicated EmX or transit lane. The busses fight for space and advancement in with all the other traffic.

Observing this, one has to ask, what’s the point? It’s as if EmX is not BRT at all, but just a high capacity, frequent service bus that has a short section of pretty but poorly thought out busway to make good pictures for the UO brochure materials.

Lest this become one giant dig against EmX and Lane Transit, EmX is, even if poorly executed, a step forward. It is still a high capacity bus line, and it is running on fast, frequent schedules. Service begins early, in the wee hours of the morning, and runs until well late in the night. But if Lane Transit is looking to expand their system — and they are — they ought to rethink their bus interior layouts and colors, and they need to think about more actual busways, or at a minimum signal priority and associated bus pockets at intersections.

So have I lost all hope for BRT, and reverted back to my knee-jerk BRT dislike? No. EmX may have been a tremendous disappointment, but BRT systems elsewhere appear much more useful. Everett’s Community Transit opened its own system, Swift, last year. Although I have yet to ride it, on paper it looks promising, including seven miles of busway and ten miles of signal priority service. (Unfortunately it looks like they us the same busses as EmX, however.) Of more interest, perhaps, is King County Metro’s proposed RapidRide system, which combines BRT elements with TriMet (pre-budget cut) style frequent service. Hopefully both will serve as better models of how BRT can add value to a public transit system, rather than just appear to, as EmX does.