The reason BRT is so slow to develop in NY is that the highway dept has not figured out how to use it to rebuild all the highways. Learn from Minnesota, you use BRT to build roads, then forget to run the bus service! BRT is a joke.

In many European countries everything is sort of on the honor system and they just randomly check people's tickets to see if they are punched. Most people use monthly passes that they have and just flash the inspectors. I'm not sure if this system would work for the NYC system. Certainly it would not work with metrocards.

The east side of manhattan is an excellent place to do this, because it has only the Lexington Ave subway line.

Calling BRT anti-urban or pedestrian unfriendly misses the point - BRT is an alternative to subway travel.

In my observation, a lot of time is wasted at stops because people are allowed to exit by the front door and therefore passengers waiting to board must wait for everyone to get off the bus first. Simply putting a one-way turnstile at the front of the bus, and forcing people to exit through the rear door, would probably save as much as a few minutes at some stops.

Ethan, have you tried the TransMilenio? I have tried both and let me tell you, Bogata is a dream. I can't say I particularly liked Curitiba's system, which proves the rule: it pays to NOT be first, so you can learn from the mistakes of the pioneers.

But the TransMilenio really is fantastic, and while it may be better for the outer boroughs, NYC should take direction from Bogata when we build our BRT lines.

I think we should name the new system TransPenalosa.

Ethan-
You could say that subways do the same thing.

I agree that I would be inclined to enter a BRT station at the last moment preferring to window shop or pace around or whatever.

I also agree that transit for the suburbs will look different that on the Upper East Side. But we have buses that move 5 miles an hour- providing a dedicated lane and a prepaid boarding capability seems like a small price to pay (as well as a huge incentive to getting people out of their cars)

The infrequent stop issue has to do with speed, but also with the pedestrian scale-design of the neighborhood. Some successful BRT and light rails systems adapt to urban setting by behaving more like normal buses or trolleys. In other words, the just like street design, transit design should change according to context and be focused on supporting the destinations it is meant to bring people to. A street that is all about transit, while very positive in many regards, can actually lack some of the life, destintaitons and chaos that make good streets. I witnessed this issue last week on bus malls in Madison, WI and Denver, CO and will try to post something about these and some other transit dedicated streets in urban areas at some point.

There is nothing wrong with moving more capacity on our streets, but in New York more than anywhere else, we have to ask a lot more from our streets than just moving people.

"We tried (a type of) Bus Rapid Transit (without pre-payment, dedicated lanes, etc). Didn't work. See? New York really is different! Back to the old way of doing things."

As someone who checks the license plate of the cars I see making a right turn on a red light I can assure you that many of the violators of New York City-specific traffic laws are from out of state. It's likely to be the case with the BRT as well.

In any case, I'm not sure what the harm is in stoking a little hometown chauvinism for the cause of a better transportation system for the people who live and pay taxes here.

We still love you guys- just don't drive here and we'll never know you're from Jersey.

Note, the enforcement will be via camera which probably is a lot more effective than foot/car patrol. Also, the article does note that "At some bus stops, passengers would pay their fare at sidewalk turnstiles rather than on the bus, to make boarding faster."

So, while no TransMilenio, it might be a good proof of concecpt that leads to something better.

Stoking people's imagination to make them more prejudiced is the deepest root of many of the world's problems. This may seem silly, but putting "Jersey plates" on the imaginary SUV blocking the imaginary bus is an example of that. It doesn't help us, and has little value at all except the potential to make people more angrily and uselessly prejudiced.

Incidentally, in Bogota the stops are spaced at about 500 meters but individual buses don't stop at each station- there are different lines on each route that leap frog each other with transfers available at major hubs. That way there are not express stops and local stops or express buses and local buses instead, each bus is kind of express.