Matt Yglesias

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.