Toronto and Buses/BRT

[reaperexpress]

Do you have examples of curbside BRT? It sounds too much like diamond lanes to me, which depend on unreliable police enforcement. At the miminum, I would expect concrete barriers or bollards separating a curbside BRT lane from cars, so that:
- cars can never enter the BRT lane
- delivery trucks can't park in the BRT lane
- taxis can't idle in the BRT lane

Curbside BRT would seem to do the same thing to right-turns that median BRT would do to left-turns.

Riding Viva on Yonge north of Finch leaves me disenchanted with diamond lanes.

Curbside BRT can work if there isn't too much traffic turning right. Try route 196 on Allen Road/Dufferin Street. However that is using former HOV lanes, and the markings are not very noticeable. It still works though. At rush hour, buses fly by the cars.

 

[Justin10000]

In Ottawa, there are curbside lanes on Woodroffe Ave, and the lanes intersect with many driveways. I never witnessed any conflicts between buses, and cars as I used the 95 regularly.

Like surface LRT, bus lanes can co-exist with traffic no problem.

 

[gweed123]

Do you have examples of curbside BRT? It sounds too much like diamond lanes to me, which depend on unreliable police enforcement. At the miminum, I would expect concrete barriers or bollards separating a curbside BRT lane from cars, so that:
- cars can never enter the BRT lane
- delivery trucks can't park in the BRT lane
- taxis can't idle in the BRT lane

Curbside BRT would seem to do the same thing to right-turns that median BRT would do to left-turns.

Riding Viva on Yonge north of Finch leaves me disenchanted with diamond lanes.

I will also cite Justin's example of Woodroffe in Ottawa. For an arterial road, it works very well (well, as well as can be expected, it handles the load). Parking/driving in BRT lanes isn't as big of a problem as you make it out to be. I don't think I've ever seen someone drive it one, expect for about to make a right turn and having to cross over it.

And no, they don't do the same thing for right turns as in-median does for lefts. Right turns do not require a specialized signal, left turns do. On Woodroffe, a lot of the right turn lanes start a good 30-40m before the actual turn, so there is plenty of time for drivers to safely cross the BRT lane without interfering with the bus. This model could be applied to nearly any major suburban arterial road with little problem.

For carrying between 1000-4000pphpd, I have no doubt in my mind that curbside BRT is the way to go. By far the cheapest option, and still provides a very decent level of service.

 

[gweed123]

To add to my previous point, Ottawa is looking at building a series of curbside BRT routes as part of their 'supplementary transit network'. One of the first streets that is going to get it will be the Baseline-Heron corridor. I liken this stretch of road to Eglinton outside of its central stretch. They have already placed queue jump lanes at key intersections along the route, and they are looking at widening the road to accomodate curbside lanes for the entire corridor.

For anyone who's interested, the entire report is available here: http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/citycouncil/trc/2008/11-10/Document 1 - Supplementary Corridors.pdf

It basically details how they arrived at what corridors are going to get what level of increased bus service (rush hour buses-only lanes, queue jump lanes, or full curbside BRT lanes). Very informative document, and from what I can see, very much outside of the usual political persuasion that is in these types of planning documents. This one seems very "this is what the numbers say, this is what makes sense from a transit planning perspective, so we'll do it".

And just to show that Ottawa is not fully biased towards BRT, the plan also includes an in-median LRT down Carling Ave. The key point I want to raise with this is that in-median LRT has been recognized in it's proper role: as higher order transit on a SECONDARY CORRIDOR. It's not intended to serve as a primary long-haul line, but rather a medium capacity, higher frequency local line, with direct connections to the primary network.