Are you including vehicle purchases and garage construction in either of those numbers?
No. That's purely infrastructure costs. In any case, it would likely cost more for LRT for both of those items anyway. The City of Ottawa's Supplementary Network plan has consistently shown that the proposed BRT projects come in between 1/3 and 1/2 the cost per km as the proposed LRT projects (specifically the in-median along Carling Ave). I've referenced this plan several times in a couple of threads.
Viva is my usual example of BRT/pre-BRT because I ride it. I like what they are doing, but they are leaving the problem spots for last.
They are:
- Single tracking the busway at the Highway 7/404 chokepoint
- AFAIK, not doing anything in narrow downtown Richmond Hill
- Not building anything on Yonge between Finch and Highway 7 in hopes of getting a subway there instead
VIVA is a decent example, but it pales in comparison to what OC Transpo runs. VIVA is a premium service, and in many ways does not integrate as well with the local transit system as it should. In Ottawa, all different kinds of routes are intertwined between all different road/lane configurations.
Now that's not to say that the Ottawa BRT system doesn't have its choke points too, because it does. The downtown is a mess, and that's why they're upgrading it to grade-separated LRT. This is simply because the downtown stretch has the lowest capacity of any part of the system, and it's carrying the most number of people. It's a victim of its own overwhelming success. Excess ridership is a great problem to have, it sure beats running empty buses all the time.
But yes, single tracking the busway is a huge mistake. If the station is on a busway (dedicated road just for buses), the stations should all be 4 lanes through the station. You won't find a single Transitway station in Ottawa outside of the downtown that's only 2 lanes. Heck, even IN the downtown some of them are 4 lanes. The ability to run express buses on the same corridor is one of the strengths of BRT, and not building stations to be able to handle that is a huge mistake.
Your other two are really route-specific issues as opposed to issues with BRT itself. They would be having the same space constraints in Richmond Hill if they were doing in-median LRT, and the Yonge St situation would be even less likely to happen if they were to want to build LRT instead of BRT. Personally, I think they should build the bus lanes now, and when the subway opens, convert them to HOV lanes. It's not like those lanes are going to be 'excess' once the subway opens. All it takes is redoing some overhead signs, and maybe changing a few pavement markers.