ION Stage I: what would you do differently?

[Bytor]

You're assuming they'd use diesel. We are transitioning to electric buses now, with all new bus purchases (including the articulated ones) electric.

That transition will take a long time, and when this hypothetical alternate BRT would have been made it would have been all diesel. And even now, electric busses cost $4M each, compared to the $6-7M for a tram, and you need more electric busses than you need diesel busses because they only last for 4-6 hours, which significantly diminishes that portion of the cost advantage of a BRT, and will for many years to come.

And in any case, electric trams will still use less electricity per passenger than electric busses will. The efficiency ratios for electric car vs electric bus vs electric train will work out just like gasoline car vs. diesel bus vs. diesel train, with the larger vehicle being the most efficient per passenger, because physics.

And while electric busses won't require as many mechanics as diesel busses, all these busses they will still require more mechanics than the trams.

And, of course, you still need all the extra drivers.

And I think you're way overestimating how often they'd need to relace concrete pads. It would not be very often. I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers from.

As I said, from the real world example of Charles St. Terminal and how often it had to be redone with all the traffic that went through it.

I no longer have the figures handy, but I do believe BRT was deemed to be cheaper, they just wanted to go with LRT.

Yeah, Well, I've given you a bunch of things. The extra drivers, the extra mechanics, the higher energy costs, the increased busway maintenance over time. You're just ignoring them.