Seattle is only a couple months away from beginning to operate its light rail system and a year away from our first stab at bus rapid transit (BRT).  Some of the benefits of these significant investments are obvious - by providing more frequent, reliable and convenient transit people will have better options when deciding how to get around.  The less obvious, but arguably more important, benefit comes from how we decide to treat the land around the stations. Stations provide focal points for creating dense, multi-use, pedestrian friendly neighborhoods- neighborhoods that make social, economic, and environmental sense.

Providing options is a great first step, but if we don’t look at land use we will undoubtedly fail in making the necessary shift to a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly mode of transport.   For the past 60 years we have been social engineering our cities around the automobile.  We need to look for opportunities to rethink how we design our cities, and big investments in transportation are one such opportunity.

Another critical effort will be the way in which we deploy our bus rapid transit.  BRT is a term that means a lot of different things to different people, but the big picture to me is that it is an attempt to create a transportation system similar to light rail, but without the massive cost that light rail often entails.  The main components to successful BRT are:

• Dedicated right-of-way.  Buses stuck behind cars are not rapid.
• Frequent service.  Buses need to come often enough that you don’t need to check a schedule - you just show up at the stop and know that within 10 minutes a bus will arrive.
• Fast loading and unloading.  One of the great benefits of light rail is the station - a train pulls up, multiple doors open and people rush on and off.  No one fiddles for change or a pass. We can have this same ease of access at properly designed BRT stops and buses.

There is no question that Seattle and the region need more transit.  Within a little more than a year we should have both light rail and BRT operating.  The challenge we face is making the right land use and design decisions so that we maximize the return on our transportation investment.

Phoenix is about a year ahead of us in light rail and BRT.  Here are some comments on my brief tour of Phoenix’s new light rail system and BRT, which both debuted less than two months ago:

All the development I saw was very auto dependent, except around the stadiums and ASU.  A couple things I think Phoenix did right: the light rail appears to mostly use existing right-of-way as opposed to buying new ROW - this is much more cost effective. Also, deploying BRT to support light rail is a good move. Some problems: What they call BRT is mostly just a fancy looking bus right now (about $720,000 per bus), but they are working on it. Hopefully they follow through. The light rail also runs through some very sparsely populated parts of town where as much as a third of the land is completely vacant.   Compare this to the development that is springing up around the light rail stations in the Rainier Valley.  I guess the upside is that there is potential for lots of new development. I am not sure what the city is doing, if anything, to encourage that, but the downside is that ridership will take a hit in the short term until the land use catches up.