I was happy to see in the Sun-Times on July 30 that the CTA is considering increasing use of signal priority — where traffic signals react to nearby buses by turning green, or if already green, by extending green time. Signal priority not only improves service by decreasing travel times, but it reduces operating costs since buses traverse routes faster, and fewer buses are needed to serve the route with the same frequency of service. I was also happy to see that the CTA would not be implementing bus rapid transit, or BRT, immediately.
The overall net benefits of BRT are much less clear. By taking lanes away from automobile traffic, BRT can increase traffic congestion tremendously with attendant negative effects on businesses and the economy, to say nothing of adverse effects on air quality and greenhouse gases. I hope that well before implementation, the CTA does a thorough study of the effects.
Ashish Sen, former director, Urban Transportation Center, University of Illinois Chicago; former CTA board member Modernize with underground subway lines It seems so primitive to be talking about bus rapid transit when other cities are rapidly building new subway lines using the advanced German tunnel boring machines. Using dedicated bus lanes on existing city streets only serves to further bottleneck car traffic. People are already complaining about reduced lanes and increased traffic congestion due to the installation of bicycle lanes.
Using the latest high-tech tunnel boring mach.