More on Surrey Rapid Transit Study

Following up to yesterday’s post, I also talked to Jeffrey Busby and Dan Freeman about what they see as the primary difference between bus rapid transit, light rail, and SkyTrain technology. When talking about bus rapid transit and this is the assumption in the Surrey Rapid Transit Study, it is fully separated from traffic and has similar station and guideway design as light rail. The only true bus rapid transit we ever had in our region was the No. 3 Road Busway in Richmond for the old 98 B-Line. The 97 B-Line and 99 B-Line are not bus rapid transit; they are just express buses.

Anyway with that out of the way, the difference between bus rapid transit, light rail, and SkyTrain boils down to total people carrying capacity, capital cost, and operational cost according to TransLink. The following chart is meant to give you a rough idea of capital costs per km, operating cost per passenger, and total people carrying ability.

Comparing Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Light Rail, and SkyTrain

Now, I’m a big fan of light rail because I believe it offers the best value and is the most flexible and scalable form of rapid transit, but I invite you to look on TransLink's website to see how they view things.