Why Do We Need Bus Rapid Transit on Fourth Plain?

If you've ridden C-TRAN's Fourth Plain service Route 4 on a regular basis, we're sure you have experienced the following:

• Buses arriving to your stop at least 5-10 minutes late
• Full buses, with nowhere to sit
• Crowded aisles that make it difficult to board or leave the bus
• Waiting for a Route 4 bus for a long time and then have two Route 4 buses show up, back to back (known as "bus bunching")
• Stops taking several minutes due to passengers paying cash fares, boarding or unboarding of wheelchairs or bikes (or both), or having to wait for a gap in traffic to reenter Fourth Plain
• Long delays at several intersections, as buses wait in the line of traffic to get through
• Having to climb stairs, especially difficult when you are injured or mobility impaired
• Unattractive, older buses with very dark windows
• Being late for work, an appointment, or picking your kids up from school or daycare.

These problems exist and they happen not only on a daily basis, but many times throughout the day, even on weekends.  Adding more buses just means that more buses will be stuck in traffic, bunching up together, and being delayed.  That adds to frustration for Route 4 riders, as well as taxpayers who keep being asked for more taxes to provide more bus service. 

We have a better option - Bus Rapid Transit or BRT.  BRT is a modern, world-class transit service that uses attractive, articulated buses with level boarding.  The buses have about twice the capacity as current Route 4 buses, and will actually run more frequently.  They will have multiple doors, each one allowing for boarding and unboarding.  With level boarding and multiple doors, stops that now take 3-5 minutes can be completed in 15-20 seconds.  Delayed buses will be a thing of the past.  Stations will be rebuilt with lighting and other security systems.  Station areas will have new streetscape to make them and their surrounding area much more attractive than they are now.  If you need to pay cash, you can buy a ticket at a vending machine before the bus gets there. 

If you've ever ridden Portland's MAX light rail system, these buses will remind you of something looking like light rail on tires.  BRT is flexible in this case because, well, it's a bus, and if the right traffic lane is blocked or closed, the bus can go around it in the left lane.  A train can't change lanes.

C-TRAN indicates they can build BRT on Fourth Plain with most of the funding coming from federal grants, and the local funding match coming out of other grants and C-TRAN's existing reserves.  No tax increase necessary.

With BRT, Fourth Plain riders will save 8-10 minutes per trip along the entire corridor.  That is enough to be able to turn buses around at each end of the trip more frequently, which in turn means C-TRAN will need fewer buses to operate BRT.  C-TRAN's costs to operate transit on the Fourth Plain Corridor will actually go down, to the tune of almost $900,000 a year.  That is the equivalent of 4-5 buses, which can be re-deployed elsewhere in C-TRAN's system, on routes that need new service or more frequent service.  That will, as well, eliminate the need for future tax increase requests from C-TRAN.   It just makes "cents".

If you want more information, we suggest you read through our website here, or check C-TRAN's BRT website at www.c-tran.com/brt.  We are NOT affiliated with C-TRAN - we are an independent, grass roots group.  Please read on for much more information.