Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) for New England's 2nd Biggest City

Dear Readers,

Worcester, Massachusetts, is New England’s second largest city, a thriving and prosperous hub for higher education, biotech, and manufacturing. But it’s also a city overrun with cars and a poor public transit system.

As cities across the planet look for ways to make themselves healthier and safer, a growing trend is to find ways to reduce automobile dependence. Copenhagen, Denmark is widely celebrated as a success story: going from a car-centric, air polluted metropolis in the 1970s to a pedestrian paradise today, where the percentage of trips made by cycling grew by more than 50%. Today, more than half of all commuting trips are by bike. Compare that with the U.S. where only 0.5% of commutes are by bike.

Can we do better in the U.S.? Can we make our cities safer, more walkable, and healthier? Certainly! The answer for making cities more bikable has a lot to do with creating separated bike travel lanes, particularly parking protected paths. But bike infrastructure alone is not enough (as Copenhagen and other successful cities know). Major investments in fast, reliable public transit is also key.

Right now, Worcester is served by a regional transit agency that serves the City of Worcester and 36 surrounding suburban and rural communities. These 23 fixed-route bus lines largely serve people who cannot drive or cannot afford a car.

What Worcester needs is a bold new kind of mobility option: bus rapid transit (BRT). I’ve written elsewhere about how BRT means new express buses with their own dedicated lanes that stop at a limited number of stations, not stopping at every block like the current bus system. A BRT system in Worcester would mean that people can ditch their cars and get around the city with ease, reducing congestion, reducing air pollution, thus supporting better infrastructure for biking and walking.

I was very pleased when the Boston Globe endorsed my BRT proposal and local residents and officials began to coalesce around the idea. My own Tufts University students have been terrific ambassadors for this kind of innovation and we have put together a coalition of non-profit organizations to make it actually happen! Right now, we are at the final stage of building support for community outreach we are planning for later this winter. Learn how you can be a part of adapting cities to become less car-centric: Real Rapid Transit for Worcester.

Thank you for your support!

Best,

Justin