Counterflow Bus Lanes
Dedicated bus lanes are a pretty good idea that can have a pretty dramatic impact on the quality of bus service and don’t carry a large fiscal cost. But most places I’ve seen them, and certainly DC’s bus lanes southbound on 9th Street and northbound on 7th Street, the paint is regularly ignored by drivers which sort of defeats the purpose. How to increase compliance? Well, I saw this in Minneapolis:
The lane goes the wrong way on a one way street. That means that drivers inclined to switch out of a car lane and into the bus lane are running the risk of a deadly head-on collision with a bus, thus creating a good incentive to follow the law. I’m not certain that was the intention of establishing the lane in a counterflow direction (I can think of other rationales) but it’s certainly one effect and maybe something other cities should consider.
37 Responses to “Counterflow Bus Lanes”
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September 3rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Unfortunately, it’s also not pedestrian-friendly. In Pittsburgh, at least one person per year died because they didn’t look the other way when crossing the street.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Pittsburgh has one as well.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Dan beat me to it. Though, I take issue with the fact that one pedestrian didn’t look the other way on a street with a double yellow line means it’s not pedestrian friendly. Not idiot proof? Maybe…
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Madison has a similar counterflow lane for bikes. Sucks because the lights are timed for cars going the other way.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Bless you for raising the issue. I just moved from D.C. and was infuriated by those ignoring the “Bus Only” lanes downtown. I was especially infuriated by the police who ignored violations. If the system in Minneapolis can be demonstrated as safe, I say go for it.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Alternatively, couldn’t one install cameras like those used to catch people running red lights? Guaranteed punishment should be a great deterrent.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Chicago used to have counterflow bus lanes but stopped using them when pedestrians kept forgetting to look both ways.
It’s an easy mistake to make. If all the traffic is seemingly coming from the left and suddenly the road appears to clear up, many people won’t bother looking to the right before stepping into the street.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Chicago has done this for years, at least a decade, probably longer, in the Loop. It works generally well, although the congestion in the bus lanes (multiple busses backed up waiting to make a turn) is sometimes quite amazing.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Is the street usually that empty?
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
And any ecomomist would tell you that outlawing seatbelts and mounting a 6″ spike in the middle of everyone’s steering wheel would probably cut down on rear-ender accidents during rush hour…counterflow on a one-way street is contrary to basic principles of road safety.
I’m actually surprised this thing exists and I bet someone at the Department of Transportation has an ulcer because of it. I can’t go along with the idea of imposing fatal risks on drivers–and bus riders!–to make this kind of point. Put out some physical barriers. Convince the mayor she can raise some needed money by issuing tickets. Anything. But we have something like 45,000 people dying every year in traffic accidents as is, and that is plenty.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
The pedestrian concern is a particularly big deal; in Baltimore there was a section of North Charles Street that had a counterflow lane that operated during rush hour.
It was good for about a fatality per year until they got rid of it a few years ago.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
I recommend snipers, shooting balls full of hideous colored paint that won’t come off the car’s paint job.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Buses bad. Cars good.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
The TransJakarta bus system uses low dividers to keep cars out of the bus lanes. (You can sort of see them in this picture.) The dividers (about as high as a brick) are low enough that emergency vehicles or buses can go over them if it’s necessary, but substantial enough that they’ll do damage to any car that tries to cross over.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Here in London, the bus lane is (a) entirely red - the whole lane - so you can’t miss it and (b) you _will_ get a _giant fucking ticket_ if you drive your car in it.
Turns out, enforcement works well. People don’t drive in the bus lane at all (except bus-drivers, and taxis (which are allowed) and motorcycles and bicycles).
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Another good policy that they have there is allowing busses to drive on the shoulder on the interstate durring high trafic times. I have been sitting in a trafic jam there and watched a bus slide on by on the shoulder. There is sinage indicating that it is illegal for any but busses and emergency vehicles to do so.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Some of the busier streets that have these in Chicago they actually put up a solid 4′ high concrete barrier to keep people from crossing the street without paying attention.
here’s an example
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
#9. You’re looking at very southern end of the counter flow bus lane near the Minneapolis Convention Center. The avenue further north during rush hour is absolutely jammed.
Counterflow bus lanes are quite popular in Minneapolis. My bus routes take me down two of our four counterflow lanes every week day. They don’t have a reputation for being dangerous, at least to my knowledge.
Thanks to federal grants the city of Minneapolis is adding an additional lane to our two primary north-south commuter counter-flow bus routes.
http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/public-works/marq2/about.asp
The project will triple bus rush hour bus capacity on these two avenues. I could see this posing a safety hazard when busses pass a stoped bus on the left.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
There are smaller steps that can be taken to improve compliance with the bus/bike only lanes in DC — like, for example, enforcing it in any way whatsoever.
It’s ridiculous but true: because the city council hasn’t set one, there is currently no fine associated with driving your car in those lanes. Consequently there’s no reason not to. The Wash Cycle has the details.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Yes, the North Charles Street (Baltimore) contraflow was a nightmare. It ran all along the east side of Johns Hopkins University, directly between the campus and all of the restaurants/bars. As I recall, the problem was that the lane switched back and forth from being northbound and southbound, depending on the time of day. Most people crossing a large one-way street just don’t have the instincts to look the other way for fast moving busses and cars.
And incidentally, before we make jokes about drunk college students getting what they deserve— my wife frequently pushes a baby carriage across that road. Roads just don’t need to be any more dangerous than they already are, particularly when pedestrians are the ones most likely to get killed as a result.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
The world’s leading expert in making cities more pedestrian-friendly, a Dutch gentleman, was killed when he stepped in front of a bus coming down a counter-flow lane in St. Louis. After which St. Louis, which was also experiencing 1-2 such accidents (many fatal) per year, removed the counter-flow lanes. You can call people stupid, inobservent, or careless if you want but it would be hard to think that guy wasn’t generally a pretty aware pedestrian even when he was in a strange city, but the dynamics were such that he too got caught.
sPh
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
As my fellow Pittsburghers have pointed out, we’ve got them here too. In fact, I can’t recall ever seeing a dedicated bus lane that didn’t go in the opposite direction of a one-way street.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
I’ve seen contra-flow bus lanes in many European cities– it’s pretty common over here. I agree with fellow-Londoner Marc that enforcement is probably the most powerful tool to get cars to stop using bus lanes. On the other hand, contra-flow lanes work wonderfully well at giving buses a competetive advantage over cars– it can make a bus journey considerably faster than a similar car journey.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:01 pm
There are a few of these in Seattle, but mostly just for a block in order to prevent requiring busses from going around several blocks in order to get going the right way. There are some contra lanes going into or coming out of parking garages for the same reason.
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:18 pm
What is the textbook for modern traffic design? Is there a journal for quality empirical research?
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:22 pm
As a Minneapolitan, I simply cannot remember the last time I’ve heard of a pedestrian fatality involving a bus in a counterflow lane. I used to work as a courier downtown and delivery vehicles, taxis, emergency vehicles, bicycles would also use (and park in) the bus lanes during non rush hours. Maybe that was enough traffic to keep people’s heads up crossing the street. Maybe all the inattentivive people crossed the streets using the skyway system. Maybe I just have a bad memory concerning these types of accidents. Who knows?
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:32 pm
So, are you going to have that beer with your Minneapolitan fans, Matt?
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I worked in downtown Minneapolis for years and never heard of a problem with pedestrians and counterflow lanes. It does have one serious drawback - if you’re used to traveling by bus downtown, and then have to drive, your mental map of how to get places involves driving the wrong way down one-way streets.
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