Here is the cost breakdown of the proposed BRT network in Santa Clara County:
As you can see from the chart, this is fake BRT because there is only a small bit of dedicated bus lanes. But even that small bit is going to cost a huge amount: 1/4 billion dollars for a just 4.87 miles of dedicated bus lanes. One main reason for the cost blowout is an unwillingness to reduce any parking or automobile capacity — meaning the road gets widened in numerous places.
The report was very strange. They discuss an option of converting traffic lanes but seem to drop it from consideration for no good reason. The options they carry forward seem designed to make the preferred option look good.
VTA explains why dedicated lanes were dropped for most of El Camino Real here–
http://www.valleyrapid.org/2012/09/board-workshop-preview/#more-392
In short, they ran into local opposition. Surprisingly, Santa Clara supported the project, but Sunnyvale rejected it 4-3 because of major opposition from car dealerships. Mountain View, Los Altos, and Palo Alto never voted officially on the project, but they were all lukewarm.
VTA is removing some parking spaces on the Alum Rock portion of the route. The El Camino Real section involves removing one car lane in each direction. The cost is probably because streetscaping and landscaping for the entire stretch of dedicated lanes is part of the package.
Slightly OT, but isn’t the VTA starting a 523 this fall along the 23′s route? That right there (and its a very long time coming) should provide a lot of the BRT’s benefits at a low cost.