All it takes is a little inspiration and some political will to get the ball rolling with creating Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the Seattle region. While rail transit is an important strategy for connecting urban centers and serving neighborhoods, building new rail infrastructure takes time and funding to complete.

For Bus Rapid Transit, the infrastructure already exists, because the streets are already built! A new network of BRT routes, traveling in separate bus lanes on existing streets, could just take several years to complete. Just imagine how exciting it would be to have BRT routes criss-crossing the metro area, connecting neighborhoods and providing mobility throughout the region by the end of this decade.

In Curitiba, Brazil the city has spent decades building a BRT system. This system has inspired many cities throughout the world because in Curitiba they don’t wish they had a rapid system, they’ve built one, and because it’s a system of buses, it’s not cost prohibitive to operate.

A new dawn for urban planning can emerge for Seattle. We see this happening already with the leadership from Mayor Nickels as the organizer of the alliance of cities in support of the Kyoto treaty. Creating new transit service and a better transit system is at the top of the list of our own Green Ribbon Commission’s recommendations for combating global warming and environmental destruction. A new BRT system will do just this.

Urban Transit

Seattle PI article about Curitiba, Brazil