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[quote user="daveklepper"] But the operating costs for BRT is roughly double the cost per passenger mile than LRT, because one person handles more people on LRT than on BRT, because a light rail vehicle can run for 30-50 years before being scrapped and a bus for only 15-20, and because on a per-passenger basis, maintenace of the vehicles is roughly double for buses than for railcars, and although maintenance of track and signals is higher for rail than for roads, it is not that much higher, particularly where freezing and thawing occurs in the north. [/quote] Cost figures are frequently cobbled together from theoretical models, i.e. load factors, miles run, etc.  What numbers do you have? BRT is more flexile than rail. If necessary buses can be shifted to new routes to better serve changing population patterns. Pretty hard or at least expensive to move the rail system.   The Austin Red Line follows a rail route that was laid out in the 1890s.  It meanders across Williams and Travis counties in a nonsensical pattern.  It is one of the reasons very few people use the system. The same is partially true for DART's light rail system.  For the most part it runs along rail lines that were laid down more than 100 years ago. As a result, DART carries less than 3 to 5 per cent of the Metroplex population, although it does better in the city.   As the Austin dreamers are coming to realize, building a light rail line from scratch would cost more than $47 million per mile.  It will take a lot of operating savings to recapture that investment.
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