SBBL: Shared Bus & Bike Lanes

Arlington

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Both Cambridge and Boston need more shared bus-and-bike lanes. Common in the UK, but rare in the US, they've proven suprisingly successful. As it turns out, bikes and buses mix well in part because buses don't make crazy lefts or U-turns and rarely even turn right.

Buses, even at 5 minute headways end up being pretty "rare" in the lane and have more predictable speeds (they physically can't do jackrabbit starts). So the bikes are like tick birds swarming around the elephants.

http://planfortransit.com/wp-content//Shared-Bicycle-and-Bus-Lanes.pdf

Personally, I think we also need more "rush only" lanes. In DC it is quite common for parking to be prohibited on the curb lane in the rush direction, but just for the peak, and act as parking the rest of the time (This is rare in Boston...or at least not used where it is needed.

Mass Ave in Cambridge should have this inbound in the AM from, say Rindge (the outer end of Porter Sq) to Waterhouse (the tunnel portal), and outbound in the Evenings from Harvard Law to the Arlington Line.

Most "Mom & Pop" storefront merchants who want parking "out front" should actually like the idea that at 10am, when their store opens, the curb will change back into parking
 
So many of those pictures show cars in the bus lane...

We have bus/bike lanes in Boston. Essex Street in Chinatown -- except that it's been "open" to general traffic for years. And Washington Street in the South End -- a.k.a. the Double Parking Lane.

The police have zero interest in enforcing anything that might help bus or bike riders.
 
So many of those pictures show cars in the bus lane...

We have bus/bike lanes in Boston. Essex Street in Chinatown -- except that it's been "open" to general traffic for years. And Washington Street in the South End -- a.k.a. the Double Parking Lane.

The police have zero interest in enforcing anything that might help bus or bike riders.

Many of those lanes are bus-only 7-9am. It would be great to have more bus/bike lanes - it works amazingly well in Paris. It just seems like the streets are too narrow and the drivers feel too entitled to what they already have to give it up.
 
I actually found the bus/bike lanes in London exceedingly scary for biking. And that actually has more to do with the insane frequency of buses than anything else... as a result, the bus lane was often a BUSIER lane than the adjacent car lanes. And, the buses were unpredictable about when they would pull in to the curb, wrap around another bus, stop short, etc etc etc.

When in London I ride with the cars.
 
I actually found the bus/bike lanes in London exceedingly scary for biking [this] actually has more to do with the insane frequency of buses than anything else.
If frequent bus service is a curse,
May the Lord smite me with it.
And may I never recover.*

*with apologies to Tevye, Fiddler on the Roof

{and of all the worries in Boston, frequent bus service is pretty low on the list}
 
A lot of what makes these bus and bike lanes hard to enforce is the retail/residential uses at curbside.

But consider all the lanes curbside at the Common and the Public Garden. All that should be bus-and-bike only.

I'd also do the "inner" lanes of Comm Ave between Kenmore and Charlesgate.

And all around the Christian Science (on Mass Ave & Huntington)
 

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