A picked-up blog post that we ran last year on "rapid bus" transit (or, if you prefer, Bus Rapid Transit or BRT) garnered a whole lot of page views.

The article, by Conrad deFiebre, a transpo expert at our favorite policy-oriented think tank, Minnesota 2020, opined that one important link in the regional transit chain needs to be BRT—which is a midway point between the traditional in-traffic bus and light rail. BRT, which typically involves a dedicated bus lane, and sometimes includes arrangements that give the big vehicle priority at traffic signals, frees buses of many of the impediments of driving in traffic, allowing for a swifter ride and more regular and predictable arrival and departure times, à la rail. You also buy your tickets before boarding, which cuts down that often-interminable wait for everybody to board, figure out the fare system, pay, get transfers, and sit.

DeFiebre gave a nod to the first BRT project slated for the Twin Cities, a route from Roseville via Snelling Avenue and Ford Parkway to the 46th Street Station on the Hiawatha (sorry, Blue) Line, slated for 2015. The project, he writes with a smile, "boasts a cost estimate that looks like a rounding error for light rail: $25 million."

What would that pay for? "Half of that would be for two or three heated stations every mile and most of the rest for state-of-the-art buses that mimic the comfort and travel times of rail." Other major arteries where BRT is being mulled—along with other options like streetcars—include Lake, Chicago, and Broadway in Minneapolis, and Seventh (East and West) in Saint Paul.

Rain and the Red Line

DeFiebre also gives a shout-out to a suburban plan then in development, a BRT route from Lakeville to the Mall of America—and that plan, dubbed the Red Line, opened last Saturday. Never having experienced a "rapid bus" (I used to sit on traffic-jammed New York City buses reflecting that I could walk a lot faster) I decided to join the first-day riders.

But then the power went out thanks to Friday's monsoon, and I spent a couple of days scrambling for light, ice, batteries, and—finally—reliable wi fi at a chain hotel in Eagan. On Monday morning, my life stabilized in the modest hotel room, I decided that since I was halfway to Apple Valley already, it was time to drive down to their transit hub and get aboard the Red Line.

Red Upholstery and a Purring Voice

The first advantage of BRT was obvious: a pleasant station, heated in winter I'm sure, with a door that opened from the outside when the bus arrived. You then were to march through, ticket in hand (no tickets on Monday, however—rides were free to introduce the line), and on to the bus at the same level as the floor, with no awkward step-up. I joined a handful of people—maybe seven—on the MOA-ward journey.

The bus was a rather narrow 30-seater, but spic and span, its seats upholstered in a vivid red dot-and-netting pattern that added a delightful air of flamboyance to so simple a thing as a bus ride. There were bike racks. An LED screen and a purring recorded female voice announced the stops—and there weren't many as we zoomed along in our dedicated lane: 147th Street, 140th Street, Diffley Road to Cedar Grove station, and then—almost before I realized we could be anywhere near it—a swerve onto Old Shakopee Road and up the west side of the great Mall. At 28th Avenue and 82nd Street there was a stop where you could transfer to a Blue light rail car, and then we headed into the huge transit/parking structure of the MOA.

And then came stasis. We sat for what seemed interminable minutes behind a FedEx truck emblazoned with the ironic slogan "The World on Time." We inched ahead. We waited. I recalled sitting motionless in a bus on Second Avenue in Manhattan, watching the entire world pass me by on foot. We inched and waited.

Finally, as the Fed Ex truck finally pulled ahead and we followed it, I spotted the holdup: a guard booth and two armed and unformed men, inspecting incoming vehicles to make certain a car bomb wasn't headed into the heart of America's temple of retail.

But they let our bus pass with nothing more than a nod and a smile.

Now that's transit!