Quote:
Originally Posted by Barnes
No offense to the residents in the SW 'cause it's great for them but why aren't they looking at dedicated bus lanes and underpasses for the existing SE BRT. I live in Copperfield and it takes the same amount of time to take the community bus to the LRT to downtown as community bus to SE BRT to downtown. The R is supposed to stand for rapid IIRC.
The lasers that are supposed to give priority at intersections do #### all, going through quarry park adds a ton of time to the trip and no one gets on or off (it's a business park. everyone has a parking spot for cripes sake) and there is only one lane for a large portion of the trip. It's even more ridiculous that the SE expresses go this way as well.
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Not to say this sentiment doesn't have legitimacy, because it does, but here's a couple points in response.
The SE BRT is planned as a precursor for an LRT route, so a lot of the capital expenditures (bridges, dedicated rights of way, signal bypassing, etc.) are being put off for when the LRT route itself will be constructed. The same isn't true for the SW, so spending the capital on the BRT makes more sense, because that is the endgame.
Also, to be fair, the SW route will have its own detour by stopping at MRU. Mind you, it should have more people boarding/unboarding than Quarry Park, but it will take more time than a direct route to/from downtown for SW commuters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ken0042
So here is my question- why build a "Bus Only" underpass there? Why not an underpass for all of 14th street traffic; and leave the surface intersection for the turning traffic.
Yes, the bottleneck will continue to be the next intersection; but at least start making 14th a bit of an expressway.
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The guy that went to the open house (and I am getting the above information from) said he asked about this too - why not a full-out interchange rather than just the bus-only underpass? The response he got was that the residents nearby do not want an interchange there, so they are floating this bus-only underpass idea for the BRT. This isn't anything new either. Residents along the 14th Street corridor have been shooting down the thought of turning it into an expressway with interchanges for decades.