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BRT International Even a brief survey of planned or existing BRT lines around the world reveals that in virtually every corner of the globe, cities are increasingly looking to Bus Rapid Transit as a viable transit solution. BRT North/West – Calgary, Alberta, Canada Calgary adopted BRT as an interim transit solution for the northwest region of the city, opening its first BRT route, the BRT North/West, on August 30, 2004. Although the city’s long-term plans anticipate replacing BRT with LRT and the city generally considers LRT to be an optimal transit solution, it has chosen to use BRT in corridors where light rail will not be constructed for several years or where there is a need to build projected ridership before committing to the cost of LRT. The North/West line provides fast, high-level service featuring low-board, New Flyer buses. Calgary estimates its LRT operating costs are 25 cents per ride, compared to 89 cents for BRT, with the single largest difference being the number of required personnel1: Canadian statistics are not necessarily directly applicable to the U.S., of course, since Canadians use mass transit at two to three times the rate of Americans. Calgary is several stops ahead of the Twin Cities on the mass transit track, having just celebrated its 25th year of LRT service. Its C-train is among the most admired LRT systems in the world, and boasts ridership of 250,000 people per day, constituting half of Calgary Transit’s daily ridership.2 The city’s funding equation reflects a political and cultural commitment to public transportation that most American transit planners can only dream about. Calgary Transit benefits from a provincial tax on fuel consumed in Calgary that is dedicated toward new transit. In 2004, Alberta instituted a new municipal infrastructure program for Calgary worth $886 million over five years, and the city allocated 70% of this funding to transit. Canada also has a new Gas Tax Fund for “environmentally sustainable” urban infrastructure, which will direct nearly a half billion dollars to cites in Alberta over five years. 1 A Review of Bus Rapid Transit (Calgary Transit 2002), at 11(available online at http://tinyurl.com/2a9sdq) (last accessed March 7, 2007). 2 McKendrick, Neil, et al. Calgary’s C-Train: Effective Capital Utilization, (Calgary Transit, April 2006) (available online at http://tinyurl.com/25vn9z) (last accessed March 6, 2007).
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