The wheels careened around the designated roadway, gliding and smooth underneath the liberated aluminum bodied vehicle, carrying groggy students and faculty past the startled squirrels and poultry to midterms, office hours and essays.

The vision of efficiency: light-rail-like people movers ushering in a new area of transport. According to a recent University Enterprises survey, 53 percent of faculty and student respondents said they would use light rail to or from campus if there was a convenient way to get between the rail station and campus.

Bus rapid transit, or BRT, is the convenient solution.

Bus rapid transit looks like a light rail car, however, because it has rubber wheels it can run on specific concrete or asphalt paths and campus roadways. The Transportation Research Board (a division of the National Research Council) noted the convenience and cost effectiveness of BRT in its Report 90: Bus Rapid Transit Volume 1.

The report states, “bus rapid transit systems are found in cities throughout the world. Their operating flexibility and their ability to be built quickly, incrementally, and economically underlie their growing popularity.” The report also goes on to describe the travel time savings that a particular BRT system could provide. The system could save up to 2-3 minutes per mile on designated roadways, roadways that are set aside specifically for the BRT; in areas where congestion is the greatest, it could save 1-2 minutes per mile.

If expanded, the BRT has the potential to alleviate congestion on highway 50, Howe Avenue and other tedious roadways throughout Sacramento, not just answer the vexing question of how to get to campus on time.

In cities like Houston and Los Angeles, implementation of BRT has increased the amount of new bus riders. New riders in Houston increased by an estimated 18 percent. New riders in Los Angeles increased by nearly a third. The increase shows that when people are given the choice between efficient public transportation or driving their private, gas guzzling automobiles they will defer to the public option.

But BRT is only the beginning.

Attention in the 1990’s to the issue of reliable transportation in California led to the creation of the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA). This board was charged with the responsibility of designing a high-speed rail system for the state.

The plan eventually developed by the CHSRA included a 700 mile rail network that would cost an estimated 37 billion and stretch from San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento to Los Angeles and San Diego.

A bond initiative for a high-speed rail system was originally scheduled for the 2004 general election but was postponed until 2006. I know what you’re asking. Can the state really continue to borrow money, especially in this time of financial crisis?

I certainly hope so. The pleasure of a 150 mile-an-hour train ride from Sac to The City of Angels would be worth it.

From the local BRT to a high-speed rail network spanning the entire state, I can see a bright future for public transportation that makes the present Casey Jones era of locomotion obsolete.

Contact Kyle Hardwick at [email protected]