Believe it or not, this isn’t an easy “versus” to get supporting data for.  Even on the interwebs.

Most conversations concerning both the electric car and mass transit seem to devolve into more general discussions about other benefits of each – mainly personal freedom vs. land use – and have trouble staying focused on the issue at hand: energy use.

So, I’m going to assume folks who frequent this site are familiar with the general pro v. con arguments surrounding autos vs. transit.  Let’s leave all that stuff on the sidelines and concentrate solely on energy use, which for decades has been an important element of the pro-mass transit argument.

What does the reemergence of the electric car in America do to the energy-consumption playing-field between mass transit and the auto?

As I opened with, even Google has trouble providing an easy click-thru answer to this particular question.  While comparisons between cars and mass transit and gas and electric vehicles abound,  little if anything popped up comparing energy consumption between electric vehicles and mass transit.  So we must make due with what we have.

But what do we have?  We have BTUs per passenger mile courtesy of the Transportation Energy Data Book -2010…

• Transit Buses – 4,348 BTUs
• Cars – 3,437 BTUs
• Personal Trucks – 3,641 BTUs
• Certified Air Route – 2,995 BTUs
• Rail – 2,541 BTUs
• Motorcycles – 1,875 BTUs

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Thanks to loads of free parking and comparibly inexpensive gas, Atlanta transit riders see some of the smallest transit-to-car savings nationwide, according to a study conducted by the APTA back in March.  That said, Atlanta transit riders still save an average of $8,000 a year over drivers.

Through all our talks of transportation solutions in Atlanta, we often sneer at the lowly bus, and talk with the greatest enthusiasm about rail.  We envision an intricate web of hard steel, stretching across our metro-landscape, allowing cheerful residents to jump from trolley, to train, to trolley and back again.   There’s an undeniable nostalgia attached to the train and trolley, but is it the best and easiest solution for a city’s transportation problems of the 21st century?

On it’s front page this morning, the NY Times profiles the new, extensive bus service in Bogota, Columbia called the “TransMilenio” and deems it an undeniable success.  In response to fears of global warming, smog and congestion, the paper writes…

“Bus rapid transit systems like Bogotá’s, called TransMilenio, might hold an answer. Now used for an average of 1.6 million trips each day, TransMilenio has allowed the city to remove 7,000 small private buses from its roads, reducing the use of bus fuel — and associated emissions — by more than 59 percent since it opened its first line in 2001, according to city officials.”

Could such a system – which according to the Times article costs 30 times less than a subway to build and requires a third of the budget to operate – be the answer in the U.S.?  Despite the praise the given to Bogota, the Times reporter hedges his bets when it comes to native soil.

But bus rapid transit systems are not the answer for every city. In the United States, where cost is less constraining, some cities, like Los Angeles, have built B.R.T.’s, but they tend to lack many of the components of comprehensive systems like TransMilenio, like fully enclosed stations, and they serve as an addition to existing rail networks.

Huh?  So, buses aren’t the answer in cities where it’s not executed properly?  That doesn’t really exclude anyone, except those municipalities that suffer from genetic incompetence.  It sounds to me like if you really went whole-hog on a B.R.T., it could work anywhere.  That entails things detailed in the article like fully enclosed stations and dedicated bus lanes.   And to appease the aestetic crowd, we could buy cool, iconic buses.

I haven’t completely sold myself on the idea that this could be implemented anywhere successfully, but this article’s example gives me more reason than ever to doubt my own “train-skewed” vision.   In an era of record debt, maybe it’s time for the U.S. to swallow it’s collective pride and take a lesson from the second and third world.

As the Federal stimulus package passed both houses of Congress last week, transit junkies seemed a little bipolar as they both whimpered and cheered.

They whimpered because mass transit funding ended up receiving only 1/3 of its original appropriation ($8.4 billion from $24 billion).  But then they waved those wet hankies high when they realized that in the final moments of wheeling and dealing, high-speed rail’s money quadrupled to $8 billion.

What will be done with the high-speed rail cash is still definitely yet-to-be-determined. All that we really know is that $8 billion doesn’t get you far when building new track for 100+ mph trains (the recently voter approved L.A. to SF high-speed route will cost upwards of $40 billion).  However, retrofitting existing freight tracks between Charlotte and Macon (with a stop in ATL) seems to be substantially cheaper – only $2.5 billion! And seriously, what’s a couple billion between friends?

But what I’m curious about this morning is what will our favorite Georgia politicians do with the $168 million in mass transit grants it will receive from the Fed?  The city of Atlanta has asked for $121 million to build two street car lines and $18 million for light rail along the Beltline Trail, while Athens, Macon and Hinesburg all want a smaller piece so they can pimp their bus services.

How will this money be distributed?  Let’s ask the GDOT!

Oh wait…didn’t I read something recently about Sonny & friends looking to take authority away from our lovably dysfunctional GDOT?  I wonder if that has anything to do the more than $1 billion the state will soon receive in infrastructure money.  Maybe if we can distract the rest of the state with visions of gold-plated bridges, Atlanta can claim most of that delicious transit money!

That is unless some smaller, and less annoyingly liberal town or city asks for it.  Then suddenly its all “Light-Rail Comes to LaGrange!”