I was asked by a reporter recently about my stance on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in Hillsborough County who seemed stunned that I believe this is the logical progression for routes with high ridership. I applaud HART for choosing the Nebraska Avenue route, their route with the highest ridership, for the maiden implementation of BRT in Tampa known as "MetroRapid North/South". Increased frequencies, ticket vending machines, real-time displays, a park and ride and signal prioritization while targeting their proven customer base all make perfect sense.
One of the neat features about MetroRapid N/S is that there are very little federal dollars involved. The bulk of the funding for this project comes from Hillsborough County which is better equipped to make these decisions than federal, state or regional authorities. Contrast MetroRapid with the BRT system designed for HART's Alternatives Analysis (AA). The AA guidelines required dedicated lanes in the BRT design in order to qualify for New Starts federal funds. Even though the AA designed BRT would have had similar service between the downtown to USF as MetroRapid, the AA BRT did not guarantee service to transit-dependent communities in between and it came in at a much higher capital cost: $725 million dollars compared to MetroRapid's $40 million!
Will people ride it? I am hopeful that if HART provides a service that is faster and cheaper and more convenient than other forms of transportation available, people will try it and would very likely adopt it in their routine. A cautious approach needs to be taken before more routes are rolled out to see how riders respond.
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