Everyone knows that transit is morally superior to automobiles, so it is no surprise to see state legislatures passing laws requiring auto drivers to yield to buses when they are pulling into traffic from bus stops. The stated reason for the law–that “the inability of buses to get quickly back into the traffic flow after a stop was hurting their on-time performance”–doesn’t hold water: if buses can’t meet the timetable, change the timetable.
Yield-to-bus laws will not significantly increase transit ridership, but they will create major problems for everyone else. Giving buses a traffic advantage over cars will probably actually increase traffic congestion. This number does not include all those men who are suffering from a long term erectile viagra properien learningworksca.org problems. But, you have to consider or clutch the services of the perfect service provider through online. viagra without prescription free If you are in good health, then 100mg Zenegra tablets can be perfect to give desired overnight delivery cialis results. And with that form of HGH comes risks, some of which are almost equally as risky as the side effects produced by drugs like tadalafil wholesale. It will also lead to more accidents as many motorists will not understand why buses have the right-of-way in situations where other vehicles would not. But such considerations are unimportant when the powers that be decide that it is essential to give an advantage to the less-than-2-percent of motorized passenger travel (in Denver) that uses transit over the 98 percent that uses autos.
Some of the posters on this blog seem to operate under the mistaken impression that 98 percent of travel uses transit and 2 percent uses cars.
The nitwits in Portland have a better idea: Put buss tops at bubble curbs, so the bus never pulls out of traffic. It just stops in the middle of the traffic lane.
Thanks
JK
And it has the added benefit of slowing down all these evil cars. They will suggest a new light rail line to carry all the travelers displaced by the bus. It’s perfect!
For that matter traffic has to stop when school buses start flashing their stop signs so children can get across the street.
Some cities also have the traffic light signals change in order move buses along faster and thus disrupting the normal allocation of traffic flow at intersections. It is done by a centralized computer system or by letting buses use the same priority signal that fire and ambulances use to trigger traffic signal priority.
See http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/businessandpartners/svd-brochure-2006.pdf
Everyone knows that automobiles are superior to everything, but it is no surprise to see state legislatures passing laws requiring auto drivers to yield to pedestrians when they are crossing the street. The stated reason for the law–that “to protect the people who choose to walkâ€â€“doesn’t hold water: if pedestrians can’t make it across the street quickly, drive a car, duh.
Yield-to-pedestrian laws may slightly increase pedestrian safety, but they will create major problems for everyone else. Giving walkers a traffic advantage over cars will probably actually increase traffic congestion. It will also lead to more accidents as many motorists will not understand why pedestrians have the right-of-way in situations where other modes would not. But such considerations are unimportant when the powers that be decide that it is essential to give an advantage to those who are stupid enough not to drive a car.
One suspects the usual suspects are planning an IPO for bus armor, and resent the foregone profits implicit in such a law. Or maybe an IPO for some other product to protect the cr*ppy, distracted drivers around here. Cry me a river.
DS
I think today’s post speaks to the overall lack of courtesy on the roads these days. We don’t have a yield to bus law in TX but I have actually yield to a bus a time or two during rush hour, and I’ve seen other people do it too.
That said, I’m not sure you can legislate against assholes on the road. Here’s a tip; If someone is trying to merge (bus or auto) with their signal on, pump the brakes and waive them over. There’s your good deed for the day.
Bennett, your attempted analogy goes too far to be useful.
The whole point of traffic laws is usually to be efficient. Make clear rules, everybody gets their turn, and try to make for the highest throughput. Pedestrians get their right of way and certain times, but they can’t just cross the street whenever and whatever they want to.
One big exception to the efficiency goal is school buses as they get an extreme priority for obvious reasons. I think they could be made both safer and less disruptive, but no one wants to increase risk for kids.
The problem with this city bus priority is that it is justified by picking one group of people as morally superior to other people. Empty buses don’t deserve any priority over a soccer mom SUV. In reality, the city council really doesn’t think bus riders are morally superior — they are just using all their local government power over streets to avoid paying for more buses.
Pedestrians get their right of way and certain times, but they can’t just cross the street whenever and whatever they want to.
Again, the grasp of facts is weak. Esp since we are talking about the Front Range traffic being affected, it is state law that peds have the right of way in a crosswalk and traffic must yield. IIRC it is that way in Cascadia as well.
In reality, the city council really doesn’t think bus riders are morally superior — they are just using all their local government power over streets to avoid paying for more buses.
I suspect this is simply projecting narrow ideological assumptions on reality. Can we expect any evidence of the thought process of the Council? Any at all?
DS
Dan,
What college did you go to that taught you “[Pedestrians] can’t just cross the street whenever and whatever they want to” is somehow negated by “peds have the right of way in a crosswalk and traffic must yield”?
Borealis says: “Bennett, your attempted analogy goes too far to be useful.”
I know it does, but it was fun.
The real point I’m trying to make (which was made in my second comment) is that we should be yielding without the law, because it’s the right thing to do. We all have to share the road with other drivers, transit vehicles and pedestrians. When a bus closes its doors, puts it blinker on and tries to merge, the sensible thing to do is slow down and let it merge. That’s my real point. As for:
“Pedestrians get their right of way and certain times, but they can’t just cross the street whenever and whatever they want to. ”
Dan hit the nail on the head. All state laws on the topic are different but as far as I can tell almost every state gives the right of way to a pedestrian at an un-signaled crosswalk and/or intersection. Many state give pedestrian the right of way regardless of place. I’ve seen traffic stop on a state highway in Idaho so pedestrians could cross (not even at an intersection or crosswalk).
I guess what I’m getting at is that I agree with Mr. O’Toole that this yield law is ridiculous. However, the reason I think it’s ridiculous is because there are so many a-holes out there that think the road is there simply for them, and that their behavior gives way to crazy rules like the “don’t run over people,” or “please let the bus merge,” laws. I disagree that there is going to be any substantive congestion/accident problems associated with this new rule (that polite drivers have been following anyway).
“Everyone knows that transit is morally superior to automobiles…”
Well, I don’t. The issue is one of practicality rather than morality.
“The stated reason for the law–that “the inability of buses to get quickly back into the traffic flow after a stop was hurting their on-time performanceâ€â€“doesn’t hold water: if buses can’t meet the timetable, change the timetable.”
So, we have buses, which unlike cars demand a payment up front, and which run slower than cars – so for people who can afford cars, the car is a a better deal. But we need buses to reduce traffic congestion, since people in cars take up too much space. So Antiplanner’s idea, bizarrely, is to get people out of cars and onto buses by making the buses as slow and as unattractive an idea as possible. Most of the time Antiplanner gets is right, but here he is just plain wrong.
“decide that it is essential to give an advantage to the less-than-2-percent of motorized passenger travel (in Denver) that uses transit over the 98 percent that uses autos.”
No, it’s about bringing buses closer to what cars can do in performance terms, so we get some movement from cars to buses. It’s about increasing that 2% to 10% or 20%. The USA has congestion problems, and can either try to tax cars off the road, or find some decent alternatives.
The USA should be doing something more like this:
http://www.gobrt.org/Transmilenio.html
You can’t do that if you keep sucking up to the self-perpetuating 98%.
Bennett,
Now you have made a great point! Cars should yield to buses trying to get back into traffic, just like cars should yield to other cars trying to change lanes (in most cities cars will speed up to cut you off if you signal too early). Most cars probably do yield, but even a small number who do not yield screw up traffic flow.
One big problem with buses trying to re-enter traffic is that the bus driver has to wait until the traffic totally stops. The driver can’t believe rely on someone who just slows down, waves them in, or flashes their headlights, etc. Those messages might work 95% of the time, but the driver can’t rely on 95% of the time because he would get into too many accidents over his career.
It is just like buses having to come to a complete stop and open doors at a railroad crossing. It is completely stupid, but that is what a government bureaucracy will end up demanding.
Jim Karlock wrote:
“The nitwits in Portland have a better idea: Put buss tops at bubble curbs, so the bus never pulls out of traffic. It just stops in the middle of the traffic lane.”
It always goes the same way. Car drivers don’t yield to buses, so the bus companies get rid of the bus lay-by, and stop against the kerb edge. The cars park against the new flat kerb, and so special stick-out sections are required so the buses can stop there. By the time it’s over the cars are now more stuck than if they let the buses out in the first place.
Or, car drivers won’t drive at 20mph, they consider it their God-given right to drive faster. So fewer people walk or cycle. So the cars get stuck in congestion. So they make the roads wider and faster. And round and round and round until the money runs out.
Vancouver, BC has had yield-to-buses laws for a few years now. It wasn’t very controversial, and it doesn’t seem to be much of an issue. Where it really helps buses is on already congested city streets where there are few gaps in traffic: the “flow” isn’t disrupted, but buses can return to the road in seconds rather than minutes after each stop.
The Antiplanner wrote:
Yield-to-bus laws will not significantly increase transit ridership, but they will create major problems for everyone else. Giving buses a traffic advantage over cars will probably actually increase traffic congestion. It will also lead to more accidents as many motorists will not understand why buses have the right-of-way in situations where other vehicles would not. But such considerations are unimportant when the powers that be decide that it is essential to give an advantage to the less-than-2-percent of motorized passenger travel (in Denver) that uses transit over the 98 percent that uses autos.
Randal, I don’t dispute what you say above, partly because I don’t have data to inform such an argument. I suspect you are be correct that such preferences will not result in much of an increase in transit patronage.
Having said that, I offer the following thoughts:
1. This is only an issue where bus stops have “pull-outs” for buses to get out of the flow of traffic. Otherwise, buses just stop in the right lane and block that lane while picking up or discharging patrons.
2. Drivers using public (or private!) roads and streets must stop for yellow school buses (with red lights flashing) when passengers are boarding or alighting. I believe that’s the law in all states, D.C. and other territories that make up the United States – and in Canadian provinces, too.
3. Ryan Cousineau mentioned that Vancouver, B.C. has such a law (I have never been in British Columbia). So do certain EU nations, including some places where I have driven. By my (non-systematic) observation, bus preferences had little or no impact on automobile and truck traffic.
4. Managed lanes (including priced, HOV and HOT lanes) that allow buses to use them are generally a lot less expensive than rail transit lines to build and maintain, and offer substantially better flexibility than rail and other “fixed guideway” technologies.
Speaking of managed lanes, they do have a HOT lane here in the Puget Sound area. I have never seen it clogged at rush hour, meaning that if you have a transponder (or are HOV 2+), you can get where you’re going at reasonable speeds any time of the day.
Borealis:
“One big exception to the efficiency goal is school buses as they get an extreme priority for obvious reasons. I think they could be made both safer and less disruptive, but no one wants to increase risk for kids.”
Well, the simplest way to do that would be to unconsolidate the school system and let kids walk to local neighborhood schools again. It certainly works in my town (Jenkintown, PA). We have no school bus traffic problem since we are a small self-contained district that owns no buses.
Wouldn’t you rather see your tax dollars spent on teaching and supplies than on school buses and foreign oil?
The bus drivers should just start pulling out.
I can’t imagine there are many drivers who wouldn’t yield to them. The bus is certainly 10 times or more larger than a car. Every car driver knows he is going to lose in any collision with a bus or heavy truck.
Its just like when you buy a $70,000 Mercedes or a $100,000 sports car. You then always yield to the $500 junker at the Stop sign or the end of the aisle at the parking lot because you don’t want to damage your prized car in a collision.
Don’t you yield to police cars when they want to pull out too? Why risk a ticket by raising the officer’s ire?
This is just common sense.
Since the commenting has sort of sputtered out, I will inject some humor and post a link to a Portlandia segment about ordering food at a Portland restaurant.
I hope the people of Portland are not offended by the show — it wouldn’t be funny if Portland was a typical city, and isn’t that what Portland is proud of?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2LBICPEK6w
Andrew wrote:
Well, the simplest way to do that would be to unconsolidate the school system and let kids walk to local neighborhood schools again. It certainly works in my town (Jenkintown, PA). We have no school bus traffic problem since we are a small self-contained district that owns no buses.
That might work in a state like Pennsylvania, where every square centimeter of its territory is part of some (frequently small) municipality, but not so well south of the Mason-Dixon Line, where local government is frequently at the county level, and “townships” and “boroughs” are unknown (and school districts have, in many cases, been countywide for well over 100 years).
Wouldn’t you rather see your tax dollars spent on teaching and supplies than on school buses and foreign oil?
Maybe – if you can tell us how much of the nation’s fuel consumption is by school bus fleets (and by parents driving children to school).
This post is a silly bit of afraid-of-change. ‘Yield to buses’ has been standard in Australia for years and the world has not come to an end.
Borealis: ‘Make clear rules, everybody gets their turn’. Precisely. The whole point of yield to buses is that otherwise, in certain conditions of traffic density, the bus will never get a turn.
Just like trying to cross a busy road without a controlled crossing – how many hours am I meant to wait because not one of the passing motorists is willing to wait for five seconds?
It’s a simple economic calculation: if the choice is between delaying a few motorists for a few seconds, and delaying a bus full of people by a minute or two, the efficient course is obvious. And yes, I know that buses are often not full, but that’s a boundary problem – rules have to be clear, it’s just not practical to say ‘yield to the bus only if it’s carrying more than five people.’
As for ‘if buses can’t meet the timetable, change the timetable’ – the obvious corollary is that if motorists can’t meet their timetable, they should change it too – in other words, just accept increasing congestion. Yes? Much cheaper than building roads.
You have a lot of good information and ideas Randall, it’s just a pity that you overegg the pudding by seeing everything through an ideological prism. With smartypants taglines like ‘Everyone knows that transit is morally superior’, who do you think you’re impressing except your echo chamber?
If this sort of statute causes problems, we should already see the statistics. A lot of places already have this. For example, this has been part of MN’s statute 169 for decades.
This has been the law in BC for a few years now. It applies everywhere in the province but only matters in Greater Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna. I never heard of anyone being ticketed for not yielding, I think it is really working as reminder to let the buses back into the traffic.
Remember, we are Canadians and have this over developed sense of politeness. You can see it in action at the Lions Gate bridge when four lanes merge down to one lane. Everyone waits their turn and the merge happens like a zipper.
The law has had little impact on traffic flow for overall traffic but it has helped with bus timetables.