How We Can Build a Rapid Transit Network Overnight Everywhere
How Bus Rapid Transit Can Save Us from a Nation That No Longer Supports Transit or Knows How to Build It
Over the past few years, the United States and much of the Anglosphere have seemingly reached a troubling consensus: we can’t build anything efficiently. Subways now cost over a billion dollars per mile, only a handful of naval ships are built annually, and highway construction costs have skyrocketed by 166% in just five years. Our infrastructure development has become synonymous with delays, inefficiency, and exorbitant costs.
But what if we could sidestep these barriers and get rapid transit built quickly? Instead of waiting decades for high-cost rail projects, we could adopt a solution that is cheaper, faster, and just as effective—Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). With the right policies and investments, we could transform urban mobility in just a fraction of the time and cost of traditional rail.
The answer for me is Bus Rapid Transit (BRT).
BRT is the best way to rapidly expand transit in the U.S. while avoiding the cost and construction challenges of rail projects.
So what is Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)?
First conceptualized in the 1966 Runcorn New Town Masterplan in the U.K., the first true BRT system emerged in Curitiba, Brazil, in 1974. Today, nearly 200 cities worldwide have BRT systems, with South America leading the charge—Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico alone see 16 million BRT riders daily.
At its core, BRT offers the benefits of a light rail system but uses buses instead of trains. Key features include:
Dedicated Right-of-Way – Ensures buses aren’t stuck in regular traffic.
All-Door Boarding – Speeds up passenger boarding and reduces dwell time.
Busway Alignment – Routes designed for efficiency and minimal interference from other traffic.
Off-Board Fare Collection – Eliminates boarding delays caused by fare payments.
Intersection Priority Treatments – Buses receive traffic signal priority to maintain reliability.
Platform-Level Boarding – Enhances accessibility and speeds up boarding.
The Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP) has defined a gold-standard BRT system based on 32 criteria, covering everything from branding to wayfinding and bikeshare integration.
If planned and implemented correctly, a BRT system can move 10,000 passengers per hour on arterials and 30,000 per hour on exclusive rights-of-way with no vehicle conflicts. Take Bogotá, Colombia’s TransMilenio BRT system, which consists of 12 lines totaling 71 miles of busways and moves 1.57 million people per day—nearly double LA Metro’s entire daily ridership and 10 times BART’s ridership.
The throughput of these BRT lines matches that of many subway lines worldwide. Yet, when we discuss reviving transit in this country, we often focus on the allure of trains rather than the effectiveness of great transit systems. People respond more to glamour than to practical, high-quality service.
Why doesn’t the USA have more of it?
Despite its clear advantages, BRT struggles to gain traction in the U.S. largely due to public perception. Research shows a strong “psychological rail factor,” where passengers overwhelmingly prefer rail over buses, even when service quality is identical. This bias means that policymakers often prioritize costly rail projects over BRT, despite its lower cost and faster implementation.
Let’s highlight an example.
Consider these two transit projects:
City A: A transit line that moves 16,100 people daily for $15.2 million per mile and $2.07 million annually.
City B: A transit line that moves 7,300 people daily for $100 million per mile and $6.05 million annually.
City A is Albuquerque’s new BRT line and City B is the Kansas City Streetcar extension. In this example, 23 miles of BRT could be built for the cost of just 3.5 miles of streetcar. If we are serious about expanding transit in a country that struggles to build anything, we need to prioritize solutions like BRT that offer cost-effective and scalable options for cities of all sizes across the country.
Once we are rapidly able to build these high-value BRT systems, I hope we can then focus on robust capacity improvements through regional rail, metro systems, and other forms of transit.
What would this look like?
While rail projects often take a decade or more from approval to completion, BRT systems can be implemented in just 15-16 months. Since BRT can be built entirely within existing street rights-of-way, costly land acquisitions and major disruptions are minimized.
A proposal for Lincoln, Nebraska
Lincoln, a city of nearly 300,000 people, lacks a meaningful transit system. However, with its grid layout and wide arterial roads, a comprehensive BRT network could be rapidly implemented. A potential 130-mile, 11-route BRT system could feature:
Peak-hour frequency: Every 10 minutes
Off-peak and weekend frequency: Every 20 minutes
Service span: 5 AM to 12 AM
Annual cost: $45 million
(This is a maximum coverage scenario where nearly everyone is within walking distance of the BRT system, the alignments and network design are completely subjective to make a point)
For context, this entire 130-mile system could be funded for 11 years for the cost of a single 11-mile highway project currently underway in Lincoln. With proper project management and proper backing of both the state and local government, you could implement up such a system in 3 years.
A regional connection example
Currently, Johnson County in Iowa is attempting to implement a “pop-up” metro service on an 8.2-mile underutilized freight rail corridor between Iowa City and North Liberty to see if permanent transit investment is warranted.
The metro proposal includes:
Train service every 45 minutes (weekdays only)
Daily capacity: 7,760 people
Service span: 15 hours per day
A BRT alternative could for the same operating costs could provide:
Bus service every 15 minutes (seven days a week)
Daily capacity: 19,200 people
Service span: 20 hours per day
Not only would BRT cost significantly less, but it would also provide higher capacity, greater service frequency, and longer hours of operation. While BRT projects are also subject to the same bureaucratic environmental and planning processes that cause delays, these challenges can be addressed in the current political climate. Moreover, the ability to design and construct BRT is something that the construction industry and the state are far more capable of implementing compared to rail-based projects.
Why focus on BRT now?
I was once working on a major subway project when a grandmother who worked an evening shift told me at a public meeting, “This will make my life so much easier when it’s open.” But open wasn’t for another decade. Transit can be transformational for nearly everyone when done well, but in a country that can’t seem to build anything and faces a crisis of faith in our institutions, we must rebuild our state capacity and learn to build again. In the meantime, precedent has shown that we can stand up great BRT lines in just 15-16 months after groundbreaking.
Additionally, the new presidential administration’s regressive views on public transportation have frozen federal infrastructure dollars, blocking matching funds for transit projects. While I absolutely believe there should be a rapid transit connection between SoFi Stadium and the LA Metro rail system, spending $2 billion on a 1.6-mile people mover—when that same amount could build 133 miles of BRT instead—is just silly. The public, as well as the cultural and political movement pushing for more transit, would be far better served by 133 miles of BRT than by a short, overpriced people mover. The public feels delivery, not promises of transformational subway projects that may never happen.
BRT may not be as shiny as a brand-new train, but this country needed more transit yesterday. While we take the time to reassess why it costs us a billion dollars per mile for a people mover, we need to get back to basics and start building metro systems overnight in all 50 states if we want a real shot at forming a coalition that understands why we love transit so much.