UCLA

Public transportation infrastructure in the United States takes significantly longer to build than in the rest of the developed world. Additional building time adds to the overall expense of transit projects and to the disruption of those who live and work near them. However, there are delay costs besides financial and disruption, most notably added time costs borne by riders while waiting for the new projects to come on line. Prolonged planning processes including lawsuits, multiple community meetings, and environmental reviews extend project timelines and delay project completion. While researchers have studied the causes of delays and associated cost overruns, they have not to my knowledge examined the impact of these delays on riders. In this study, as context, I compare the delays in completing the Los Angeles Metro’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) G Line with the BRT Trans-Val-de-Marne (TVM) and T Zen Ligne 1 in Paris, France. I calculate that similar BRT projects in the United States take an average of four years longer to complete than those in other developed countries due substantially to delays in the planning process. Using data from the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), I analyze trip and buffer times for the comparatively faster G Line and standard local bus service operating in mixed traffic. I then calculate the daily difference in travel times to determine how much time riders lose by taking the regular local bus instead of the faster BRT. I then multiply the daily time difference by 1,000 days (or 250 work days per year) for the four years of added project delay. I find that bus riders in Los Angeles lose between 1 hour, 2 minutes to 2 hours, 48 minutes a day taking a regular local bus compared to a faster BRT. Over the four years of a delayed project, riders lose between 43 days, 4 hours and 117 days, 1 hour for the four years of a delayed project. This research highlights the impacts on LA transit riders and more specifically LA rider’s time due to delays in getting faster transit services up and running. Governments broadly and transit agencies in particular should work to reduce or minimize delays through standardization and better collaboration with other municipalities. Reducing these delays gives riders more time in their day, whether for work, rest, or personal activities, by cutting down on unnecessary waiting and uncertainty.