[Tagging] Bus pullout?

[John F. Eldredge]

Richard Mann <richard.mann.westoxford at gmail.com> wrote:

> A bus bay means
> 1) less sidewalk (usually)
> 2) buses pulling out and hitting overtaking cyclists
> 3) buses swinging their noses over the edge of the pavement
> threatening
> unwary passengers
> 4) buses stopping further from the kerb because they've misjudged it,
> so
> you can't step from the kerb to the bus
> 5) more road maintenance cost (or lower quality)
> 6) buses lose advantage over cars (the reasonableness of this depends
> on
> how long the bus stops, obvs)
> 
> Other than that, they're a great idea.
> 
> Richard
> 
> On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 12:43 AM, Paul Johnson <baloo at ursamundi.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 2011-12-06 at 09:11 +0000, Richard Mann wrote:
> >
> > > But I haven't tagged any (might be something to do with the
> negative
> > > value I associate with them...)
> >
> > Curious what negative value this is?

Number six, buses losing advantage over cars [being slower than cars over the same route] is an inherent part of having buses mix with other traffic, regardless of whether or not there are pullouts at the bus stops.  If the bus stops in the main right-of-way, and there isn't room for cars to pass a stopped bus, this lessens the advantage of cars over buses, but only by slowing down the entire traffic flow.  One partial work-around is to have both local buses, which stop frequently to pick up or drop off passengers, and express buses, which pick up and drop off passengers only at a few depot points.


-- 
John F. Eldredge -- john at jfeldredge.com
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria