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Bus conversion that allows it to ride the rails?

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Thanks for your comments Phoebe... a few responses spring to mind...<ul><li>your overall population in Charlotte is three times the size of Victoria, so I am inclined to think that the economics of light rail don't make as much sense for us as for you.  I can see the day when we will have light rail in Victoria, when the population warrants it, but my sense is the cost is out of our league right now. </li><li>I was interested to read about what you call "bus rapid transit or BRT -- double buses that run on paved roads that are dedicated to the BRT only and run like the light rail, with boarding only at stations."  I presume these double buses are like two buses hitched together? In Victoria, we already have quite a few double decker (over/under) buses on our main routes and they certainly help, but the bottom line here (and the main problem) is that all our commuter buses have to share the same highway as the commuters in their automobiles, so that even if you do elect to take a bus into town during rush hour, you're still stuck in rush hour traffic along with all the (mostly single passenger) commuter cars.  Meantime, we have this unused but perfectly serviceable single line railway track that goes along virtually the same route as our rush hour traffic flow, and if it were in use (by a bus that also runs on rails, as per the post below) this would cut the travel time for buses using this route in half.</li><li>The BRT you mention requires paved roads that are dedicated to the BRT only, and I assume they operate like railway lines except they are paved instead of using railway tracks.  I suppose one option for us could be to just pave over the current railway line and then run regular buses (one way, depending or morning or evening rush hour) on that route (again, using our regular road system to get them back to their starting point for another load of commuters).  The problem with this, though, is that it seems kind of counterproductive to pave over rail lines when we will probably need them for the light rail system that will eventually evolve.  I suppose you could pave the current railway track in a way that it could be "unpaved" and the tracks uncovered and put to use sometime in the future...</li><li>The reason I continue to argue for a system using buses that can also ride the rails is that this single track rail line is already in place and operational, so we wouldn't have to do anything -- no twin tracking, no expropriations of people's property to make way for a new, dedicated roadway or rail line, no nothing (except to buy some of these buses new, or even just convert ten or 20 of our existing buses so they could ride the rails).  I realize that this is not necessarily (or even probably) a long term solution, but it seems to me that it could be implemented in the shorter term (perhaps the next 10 years) until we do get our sh*t together and build a proper light rail transit system. </li></ul> Again, thanks for your feedback. Graydon GibsonVictoria BC
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