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In January I had booked a trip on the Coast Starlight from San Francisco to Santa Barbara.  Due to weather problems in Washington and Oregon, the train was running 8 hours late.  I switched my booking to the San Joaquin to Bakersfield and a Thruway Bus connection to Santa Barbara.  The bus was comfortable. It was not full, which gave me some wiggle room, but the run from Bakersfield to Santa Barbara, which takes 3 hours 15 minutes, was a pleasant ride.   Buses are a cost effective way to complement Amtrak's trains.  Amtrak has expanded the Thruway concept to North Carolina, with service to Morehead City, Wilmington, and intermediate points.  This may have been available for some time; I just noticed it on the schedules. Passenger trains make sense in relatively short, high density corridors where the cost of expanding the airways and highways is prohibitive.  Clearly, most areas of the United States don't meet these criteria.  And buses frequently are a better option. I'll report on Megabus next month.  I plan to take the Texas Eagle to Dallas, ride Megabus to San Antonio, and return to central Texas on the Eagle.  The Eagle runs once a day.  Megabus has numerous schedules between Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston.  And it is less expensive than Amtrak on most occasions. Several of the posts under this thread assert that Rapid Bus Technology (RBT) must run on dedicated rights-of-way.  This is not necessarily true.  Austin is planning a RBT route that will run on Lamar Blvd., which is a major roadway in Austin albeit not interstate highway.  The route will include rail like stations where riders will be able to buy their tickets in advance, monitor an electronic arrivals sign, and board through multiple entrances.  The driver will have some control over the traffic lights, thereby cutting down on the time the bus is stopped for a traffic light. The right hand lane will be stripped for buses as well as other vehicles turning right at intersections or into parking lots, etc. The estimated cost to implement RBT on Lamar Blvd. is slightly north of $3.1 million per mile.  The last time I checked, the cost to build a proposed light rail system from the airport to downtown and on to the University of Texas is more than $50 million per mile.  If the bus will do the job for a little more than $3.1 million per mile, I am hard pressed to understand why we should spend $50 million per mile for light rail.
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