In respect to reduced stops, the stops would be placed where AC Transit currently recieves the most riders. Sometimes stops will be closer together (as in downtown areas), but in less dense areas (like East Oakland), they will be further apart.. The stops would be placed closer together than the current 1R stops. Interestingly, AC Transit has observed that most people with disabilites walk the extra distance to catch the 1R despite the distance between stops, because of the time savings they get from shorter trip times and decreased wait times.

Rob-
Most streets considered to be more “walkable” are those with no more than one lane of car traffic in either direction on them. Think about all the “walkable” neighborhoods in the Bay Area:
Rockridge / North Oakland
Piedmont Ave.
Noe St. (Noe Valley, SF)
Chestnut St. (Marina Dist. in SF)
Irving Street (Inner Sunset, SF)
24th St. (Mission District, SF)
All of them have one lane of traffic in either direction, and maybe a turning lane at intersections. This gives pedestrians a safer feel because cars that stop for pedstrians aren’t “passed on the left” by cars in parallel lanes. Cars that are traveling behind cars that are stopping for pedestrians can’t see the pedestrians that the vehicle in front of them is stopping for. This sometimes leads to the following car to go around to the left of the first (stopped) car, endangering the pedestrian who might be stepping right into the path of the now accelerating second car. This is what traffic engineers call a “double threat”, and it is why busy streets feel less walkable.

Additionally, two lanes of travel give a car driver more freedom of movement on a street, which leads to higher speeds. We tend to drive much slower on a narrow street than we would if we have two lanes available, like we do now on Telegraph Ave.

When you design a street for cars, you get cars. When you a street for people, you get people. Matter of fact, look what happened to merchants in NYC when they took all the cars away!: http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/08/11/what-does-summer-streets-mean-for-business/

However, I think BRT on Berkeley Telegraph is not a good idea. The street is rather narrow as it is and delivery trucks and UPS vehicles stop in the middle of the street making traffic that much worse. Dedicating a lane of the already narrow street to buses only would simply add to the traffic nigthmare. Also since it’s rapid transit, doesn’t that mean reduced stops, so the bus wouldn’t stop too many places, it would simply drive through Telegraph, so locals wouldn’t get that much extra business. I could be wrong on that assumption, but that’s what it sounded like to me, when I heard about it. Perhaps it could use a side street next to Telegraph ?

The neighborhoods will still be just as walkable so I don’t think they’ll lose any nearby business. Right now, traffic and parking in the Telegraph area of Berkeley are horrendous – I know I avoid it whenever possible. If I could get to those shops quickly and reliably, the Telegraph merchants would see a huge increase in shopping from me and people like me who don’t want to wait a half hour for a bus but also don’t want to spend a half hour looking for parking. Looking at other cities that have implemented BRT, I think there’s every reason to believe that merchants will see increased and not decreased business due to BRT.

My friend heard a rumor…some bus drivers love bunching. It means less work during your shift. So sometimes I think it is on purpose. I think BRT will onlt solve 50% of the problem. But 50% is better than nothing.

the main impediment to oakland-berkeley brt was NIMBYism in berkeley. which is ironic considering they are considered quite “green” on many fronts.

with gas prices where they are, i expect this NIMBYism to subside and eventually give way to full BRT and hopefully LRT.