Riding the Green Line.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It's not the Seattle monorail, the Disneyland people-mover or even the Portland light rail system. Passengers riding the Lane Transit District's new EmX service as it debuted Sunday found it to be something less exotic: It's a bus.

That's a good thing. The Eugene-Springfield area doesn't need bullet trains or jet packs. It needs to make practical and affordable preparations for increasing traffic congestion. The EmX system is a promising step in that direction.

Buses along the Green Line efficiently whisked riders from downtown Eugene to downtown Springfield and back again at speeds that dizzied no one. With their dedicated roadways and signal priorities the buses sometimes, but not always, moved faster than the traffic around them. With eight stops between the downtown stations, it seemed more a local than an express route. The four-mile, one-way trip took just over 16 minutes - faster than normal for LTD, but not warp speed.

As the Green Line opens, LTD officials have been counting on a gee-whiz factor to solidify public support for extensions of the bus rapid transit system. If people find reason to regard the EmX as something more than just another bus line, the cost and dislocation of building additional links - first to north Springfield, then to west Eugene - will be more readily accepted.

And indeed, there are important differences. The buses are big and quiet. As they move along their lane in the center of Franklin Boulevard, or when their left-side doors open with a whoosh, the buses have a futuristic feel. People riding the Green Line for the first time Sunday were plainly enjoying themselves, ready to give the new system a try.

Yet it's still a bus, and a bus can aspire to only a certain level of glamour.

There are, however, more important aspirations - such as affordability, reliability and flexibility - and the EmX offers hope of achieving them. As traffic thickens on Franklin Boulevard, transit times on the Green Line should remain relatively constant. The EmX vehicles cost more than other buses, but compared to rail stock they're cheap, so more can be added as their time advantage widens. Adding new routes beyond the Green Line won't be easy, except when compared to the difficulty of building new rail lines.

Sure, it's a bus line. But it's also, as U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio said Sunday, "the beginning of a new transportation future." There's nothing wrong with a future built on what has been proved in the present.