I’ve always been curious about designated bus lanes and
rapid bus transit. I found a very interesting panel discussion by the
Albuquerque Journal on “The Pros and Cons of ABQ Bus Rapid Transit” in
Albuquerque’s Central Avenue. This write up was particularly relevant for this
class not only because of the topic at question, but also because it touched a
little bit on how the federal government would grant 80 million for the
project, while city tax would make up the other 20 million. Not surprising,
there were many questions about this from the different supporters and
anti-supporters.
On the panel, there were three different voices: City Hall
(supporting), a Cato Institute senior fellow who is against the project and a
millennial who advocates for equitable planning policy (and is actually within
the project’s target demographic).
Some of the questions that were asked include: Why reform
the bus system on Central if one already exists? If ridership increases less
than auto-mobile traffic decreases (due to the reduced number of vehicle
lanes), wouldn’t that hurt local business? Who would want to invest in a Bus
Rapid Transit if they don’t even use
Central Ave? Why not address a problem that already exists such as the current
bus system not running at night or much on weekends?
These are all very unique questions and ones that warrant
unique answers. When I was beginning to read this discussion I immediately
thought there was going to be a right and wrong answer… however, there wasn’t.
Although I am a millennial, apart of the target demographic for the project,
and I agreed with a lot of what the University of New Mexico student had to
say, there was also a lot of validity to what non-supporters such as the senior
fellow had to say.
What do you think about rapid bus transit? Do you think that
Tucson should implement something like this or is it too soon to discuss after
the development of the Streetcar?
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