Can mass transit – especially buses -- help relieve traffic congestion on Verona Road? Some analysts don’t think so. Bob McDonald, transportation planning manager with the Madison Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, said that even doubling ridership on mass transit would have a negligible effect on traffic.

But Susan De Vos, chair of Madison Area Bus Advocates, thinks mass transit can be an alternative to expensive highway projects – if it’s given a chance. So far, that hasn’t happened, as the state continues to allocate billions to highways and millions to mass transit.

De Vos said there are some “faint signs” that mass transit is getting more attention in highway projects -- the Department of Transportation has hired a transit coordinator and plans to examine park and ride programs and transit links, for example.

But De Vos has much larger goals.

“What I'd like is to see is that transit be the project while auto/truck traffic be considered, not the other way around. Transit is the money-maker. Transit is environmentally much more sound. Transit is healthier. There are always going to be businesses that rely on heavy trucks and other vehicles, but we don't have to plan our transportation around them; we should include them in our plans but not make them the center,” De Vos said.

A regional transit system that includes express buses or bus rapid transit, in which separate lanes are devoted to buses, coupled with prepaid fares to reduce travel times, would be remarkably attractive to commuters, she said.

Proponents say buses are much more economical and flexible than trains.

However, De Vos said a major reason Transport 2020 decided to go with trains was because of the supposed “land use” value of trains. Proponents of rail lines note that they are permanent while buses could be routed elsewhere, although De Vos said bus rapid transit routes can also be semi-permanent.

For much less than it would cost for a rail line from Middleton to Sun Prairie, as envisioned in Phase I of Transport 2020, De Vos said a bus rapid transit system could include several routes, including Waunakee to Fitchburg, DeForest to Verona, Sun Prairie to Oregon, Cross Plains to Stoughton, and Cottage Grove to the West Transfer Point via the East Transfer Point, central Isthmus area, and the UW campus area.

A map of a bus rapid transit system for Madison, which could be expanded to neighboring communities, is available at http://madisonbrt.googlepages.com/.

De Vos said simple road expansion is only a temporary solution that lasts perhaps a few years. She said more development simply means more cars and, in a few years, more congestion.

Wisconsin and Dane County should do better and said current plans reflect “the old economy and vested interests, at the expense of the taxpayer, the common worker, and the local economy,” she said.

Every dollar invested in mass transit contributes $6 to the economy of the local area, she said. Investment in mass transit is particularly beneficial to low-income workers, who may spend as much as 35 percent of their income on transportation, mostly to get to job sites. And contrary to popular belief, a substantial proportion of highway construction is funded from property taxes, not the gas tax.

Although state highway costs are covered by gas taxes and registration fees, a recent analysis by 1000 Friends of Wisconsin (www.1kfriends.org) found that $1.29 billion of the Department of Transportation’s 2004 budget of $2.68 billion was derived from non-user fees from local governments.

Gas taxes would have had to increase by 40.2 cent per gallon to cover the shortfall.

De Vos criticizes “the myth that highway construction is ‘good for jobs.’ The reality is that mass transit is much better for job creation and economic development as well as for personal household expenditures.

"With its manufacturing base, Wisconsin is well poised to be a leader in the production of new style buses that would not include the old and smelly diesel engines but hybrid, electric, or liquified natural gas engines of articulated or other buses,” she said.

According to a study by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, http://www.transact.org/library/factsheets/jobs.asp, "transit investments create a wealth of employment opportunities in the short and the long run. Transit system construction leads to an impressive level of short-term job creation, and once the systems are finished, a long-term source of high-quality jobs.”

Despite the aversion to park and ride lots -- some bus advocates instead prefer shuttles, car pools, ride shares and bike lockers at major transfer points -- De Vos thinks they could be the difference between transit being practical or not.

Bus advocates have their work cut out for them, in the short and long term. De Vos noted that Madison’s Metro Transit “insists on running those empty monsters on weekends and proposes cutting service entirely instead of running smaller buses that could use half as much fuel."

“I think many people want an alternative to highways,” she said. High gas prices apparently deterred many people from driving over Labor Day, which she viewed as a harbinger of things to come.

Madison Area Bus Advocates (http://www.busadvocates.org/)