In a previous post, I warned that the Eugene bus-rapid transit line may not live up to expectations. In particular, test runs indicated that it might go as fast as promised — an average 16-minute trip from downtown Springfield to downtown Eugene. Some people thought that it was just a matter of getting the bugs worked out.
The line has now been open for more than a week, and they still can’t meet the 16-minute schedule. Sometimes a bus has fallen so far behind its schedule that the transit agency has had to pull it from the line.
Drivers are under such pressure to meet their schedules that one driver recently let off two children, then took off before their parent could get off. The driver had been ordered not to stop for such emergencies because he might miss the green light at the next intersection. Scratch one future bus riding family.
Moreover, now the transit agency tells us that the line creates a new road hazard: since half the route has two-way bus traffic in a single lane, the transit agency fears that people will get hit by buses because they will fail to look both ways. The agency has put up sandwich signs to warn people of the hazard, but how long will those last?
The good news is that ridership has increased from 2,700 per weekday under the old “non-rapid” bus line to as much as 4,200 per weekday with the new line. Is that because the new line operates on an exclusive right of way? Probably not. Two other factors probably have more to do with it: the new line runs every 10 minutes during weekdays, while the old one was probably half hourly. Plus the new line is free, while the old one required a fare.
You think maybe Eugene could have saved taxpayers tens of millions of dollars, not to mention greenspace and roadspace, building that exclusive busway? They could have run buses more frequently, dropped the fares, and gotten just about as many new riders without spending all that money.
