Quick Notes: Trends & Talk About Town

By Dennis Quick

Recently, while stuck (for the umpteenth time) in a traffic jam on the old Cooper River bridge, I dreamed of a revitalized Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority.

It was a pleasant dream that got better the longer I sat in my motionless car, a line of stationary cars stretching as far as the eye could see, the gasoline that I paid more than two bucks a gallon for wasting away. I dreamed of a well financed, muscular CARTA; one with attractive, upscale buses that enticed you to hop aboard, along with park-and-ride stations near the region’s major arterials and a traffic lane dedicated to buses only.

That special traffic lane is the key to Bus Rapid Transit. A traffic lane dedicated to BRT can move 2,100 people per hour, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Under BRT, buses run more frequently and at least 16 hours a day. Cities across the country have turned to BRT to help combat the nation’s worsening traffic congestion.

BRT changes the perception that riding the bus is for tourists and those who cannot afford cars. It works in cities like Pittsburgh, where public transportation gained a 38% increase in BRT riders because many white-collar commuters use it. (Pittsburgh’s dedicated BRT lane moves about 8,500 riders a day and cuts about 25 minutes off commute time.) When commuters take the bus because they want to, not because they have to, you have a winning mass transit system.

You make it a winning system by making it sexy. Scrap the traditional bus—a slow, awkward, exhaust-belching vehicle with all the grace and style of a plow horse—and replace it with a sleek, high-tech thoroughbred. BRT vehicles are clean, quiet, swift and comfortable. BRT stations are not mere bus sheds but inviting places that include cafés, a few retail shops, newsstands, banking conveniences and a parking lot. You park your car, grab breakfast, hop on the bus and ride to work in a traffic lane free of cars and trucks. Getting to work would be a breeze.

That is how you appeal to the group you need to sell BRT to—commuters.

A buses-only traffic lane was among the many mass transit improvements citizens suggested during CARTA’s 2003 community forums. CARTA, the state Department of Transportation, local municipalities and the tri-county governments should place busways and other BRT elements at or near the top of mass transit priorities.

Of course, the first priority is funding. The average cost of a dedicated bus lane is about $13.5 million per mile, according to the Federal Transportation Authority. The half-cent sales tax will take care of some of that, but local businesses, private donations, and the state and federal government could help fund BRT.

Ideally, we would have a BRT lane along each of our main thoroughfares. That means massive construction, and even more frustration for drivers. It also means a potentially hefty BRT price tag.

And it would be worth every penny. We need BRT. We need light rail, too. We need these things because our population is growing, and in terms of mass transportation, we need to move up to the big leagues to support that growth. An efficient mass transit system would also lure more businesses to the region and give blighted areas a much-needed economic jolt. Charlotte and San Francisco have shown that commerce tends to sprout along mass transit lines.

As to BRT specifically, I can hear the naysayers. “You really think people—particularly briefcase-toting business professionals—would ride a bus?” If that bus is part of a new and improved mass transit system, and that system is marketed the right way, and that business professional spends the workday pretty much in one facility (unlike sales reps and newspaper reporters), yes, I do.

The Lowcountry is filled with folks who want to save wear and tear on their cars, get to work faster and spend less at the gas pump. BRT is designed to do just that.

EADS ecstasy. The excitement that the Lowcountry is one of the four remaining players in the contest to land the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. plant is understandable. After all, the deal could bring us about 1,150 jobs, and we would have scored our second big aircraft parts manufacturing facility after our Vought-Alenia victory. EADS would also be a huge boost to the development of our aerospace cluster.

However, the excitement should be tempered. A few years ago, South Carolina financier Darla Moore and Harvard Business Professor Michael Porter warned us against “buffalo hunting”—the pursuit of big companies for numerous jobs. Vought-Alenia and EADS are examples of buffalo hunting; the downside is that those jobs could be shipped overseas someday. Also, while pursuing the big companies, we often forget about nourishing our homegrown ones. It is nice to nab the big boys, but it is the little guys who are the backbone of our economy.

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