It’s hard to pick much of a quarrel with the Environmental Defense Fund’s new report Reinventing Transit, which invites us to admire 11 US “case studies” where a major mobility improvement has been achieved fast and affordably. The cases are:
- Rural transit services in the San Joaquin Valley (Kings County, CA)
- The Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit corridor in Los Angeles
- The Portland Streetcar
- Flexible suburban bus routes in Prince William County, MD
- Bus-only shoulder lanes on the freeways of Minneapolis, MN
- Bus Rapid Transit in Eugene, OR (as an example of a small-city application)
- Community shuttles to commuter rail in New Jersey
- Community-tailored transit options in Grand Rapids, MI
- Downtown Bus Rapid Transit in Orlando, FL
- Bike Transit Centers in several cities nationwide
- New York City’s “Select Bus Service”, a form of partial Bus Rapid Transit
We could disagree whether these are really the “top 11,” but that’s part of the point, just as it is in those lists of “top livable cities.” By quarreling with the list we engage in the kind of thinking that the authors want to encourage. In this case, the goal is to inspire the general reader with the range of innovation occurring in the US transit industry. As the authors state: