A week ago, a pedestrian stepped onto Eugene’s 11th Avenue, a one-way street, and got clobbered by a bus going the wrong way. The accident broke the pedestrian’s collar bone, pelvis, and six ribs.
Click image for a larger view.
It turns out that 11th, which had been a one-way street for decades, was recently turned into a two-way street with the contra flow being a dedicated bus lane, which has one bus every 10 to 15 minutes. Not only is this a complete waste of space — the cars that previously used that lane moved far more people per hour than a six-times-per-hour bus could possibly carry — it completely subverts all of the benefits of one-way streets.
Numerous tests of one-way streets in the 1950s showed that they could move more traffic more safely than two-way streets. Flows were improved because traffic signals in areas with one-way streets could be easily coordinated so that someone could drive through many intersections without having to stop for a red light. When I lived in Eugene, I used to bicycle down this very street, making it from the university to the other end of downtown without having to stop.
Traffic engineers also found that one-way streets were safer, particularly for pedestrians, because those pedestrians only had to look in one direction before crossing the street. Despite these benefits, an anti-auto movement has in recent years pushed for the re-conversion of one-way streets back to two-way streets.
As the above Google Street View photo shows, it isn’t immediately obvious that 11th is no longer a one-way street. One lane is marked “bus only” but there are no arrows indicating that the buses are moving in the opposite direction from the rest of the traffic. It is easily possible that a pedestrian could cross the street from the left side and have their view of any bus blocked by a truck or van before they stepped into the bus lane.
The bus lane not only makes 11th more dangerous for pedestrians, it eliminates the other benefit of a one-way street, which is smoother traffic flows. That’s because part of Eugene’s bus-rapid transit project, which cost taxpayers more than $75 million, was to give the buses priority over other traffic at signals.
I noted several years ago that Eugene’s original bus-rapid transit line, which connected Springfield with Eugene, was so poorly designed that the buses were no faster than the buses they replaced. The transit agency considered the line a success because riders believed they were going faster even when they weren’t, but the reality was that the opening of the line in 2012 generated no new transit riders.
The 11th Avenue line is an extension of that line that opened in 2017. Unlike the original line, this one was a little faster and did generate some new transit riders. However, it could have done that without going the wrong way on a one-way street and probably could have done it without a dedicated lane and priority at traffic signals. Bus rapid transit’s main speed advantage over regular buses is that it stops fewer times, not that it has dedicated lanes.
Lately, however, a major goal of transit agencies has been to cripple auto traffic in order to give people more incentives to ride transit. As the CEO of Los Angeles’ transit agency once said of the city that is often considered to be the most congested in the world, “it’s too easy to drive in this city,” so to force people to ride his buses he wanted to “make driving harder.” That’s what the dedicated lanes and transit signal priority for buses that only go six times an hour are all about.
Eugene isn’t the only city to give transit priority over automobiles and pedestrians by running transit the wrong way on one-way streets. As I’ve noted before, Denver does this in its downtown, which has resulted in some horrific injuries to pedestrians.
Before the pandemic, Denver transit carried just 2.0 percent of the region’s passenger-miles of travel, while Eugene transit carried 1.5 percent. Yet transit agencies have so frequently claimed that they are somehow “vital” to the cities they are supposed to serve that they arrogantly disrupt traffic patterns and create more dangerous streets for their own aggrandizement. This is just one more reason why transit should be demonized and not celebrated in most American cities.
Postscript: There is no link to a news article about the pedestrian accident that spurred this post, but I am familiar with it because the pedestrian is my brother.
Oh no!
Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery!
Best wishes for a recovery.
In China there is only a few examples of bus lane at one-way streets. The only example I know is located in Pingliang, Gansu. It also let buses run in the opposite direction. It was a success because the bus route serves bus riders in that street. But there are no more examples in other cities. You can see that in the videos below right after 2:16.
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1244y1v76d/?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click&vd_source=accf4cb94dfac4fbd5fbce98ab88a574
Sorry, there’s a mistake. After 3:16.
…. and Survived. But 2 way, four-five lane Stroads are Okay for pedestrians?
Stroads are bad. Even the Federal Highway Administration knows it. 60% of all traffic related fatalities by geographic location occur on stroads.
So now what? Now we look at our local stroads and decide: Should this be a street, or should it be a road? To Auto drivers, it’s a Autobahn.
Non-freeway arterial roads, stroads, which typically carry large volumes of traffic at high speeds, are the most dangerous for people on foot, accounting for 60% of all fatalities in US. But as the Antiplanner aruged 6. in his Mobility principles. Segregation of use. But instead diffusion of use. USE the grid, not the dead worm.
Segregation of Use is the problem. Without sidewalks/crosswalks and low speed streets; Stroads segregate retail from housing, business and schools, it’s extremely dangerous to leave suburban enclaves just for a gallon of milk. The “Dead Worm” or CuldeSac neighborhood concept, that relegates neighborhoods to move via only one road. A dead end, begins on a feed road which feeds the highway. If you can bypass the highway you cut out traffic. The street grid diffuses traffic.
my 70 yo partially blind parents had no issue crossing here https://maps.app.goo.gl/e1AYqi54Mo3maqVc7
or here https://maps.app.goo.gl/BrXoRH7WajdH9R7z5
but got tagged and knocked down by a doctor in the cross walk here https://maps.app.goo.gl/D2iL7Y1LBain4j4J8 the intersections probably need to be improved in some areas.
Black and Latino people are incapable of following simple traffic rules, so we’ll just abolish them. Otherwise, it’s racist. In Post Floyd America, it’s easier to just let them die than police them.
Now watch next Streetsblog articles People of Color make up sizeable portion of traffic/pedestrian fatalities and what we can do about it?
https://www.newsweek.com/new-york-city-legalizes-jaywalking-1977409
Eugene city planners have also made biking more dangerous on one-way streets.
You can bike north on a “protected” bike lane on High Street in Eugene. High Street is one way, but the bike lane is two way. So drivers turning on High Street check for cars coming from the south, but they don’t look to the north for bikes. I won’t ride a bike southbound on High Street because it’s so dangerous. Court planners have done the same thing with Alder Street near the University.
Sorry for you brother’s injuries. I wish him a full recovery. It’s stupid to have only one type of motor vehicle allowed to run contrary to the direction of all the others. Confusing as hell to pedestrians, cyclists, and car drivers.
Just a few recent fatalities (not injuries like the AP’s brother) in the vicinity of Eugene, Oregon that had nothing to do with rapid bus lines – I wonder if the AP will mention them in his posts? Or maybe they don’t matter because they were worth it as the inevitable by-products of Freedom and Mobility (TM).
https://kval.com/news/local/highway-126-closed-near-mapleton-after-crash-delays-expected#
https://kval.com/news/local/police-71-year-old-man-killed-two-injured-in-highway-126e-crash-involving-trailer-spill#
https://kval.com/news/local/highway-126-near-vida-closed-due-to-crash-may-be-for-hours#
https://kval.com/news/local/police-80-year-old-springfield-woman-dies-in-hwy-126-crash#
Hi “Jane”! (Dan, is that you?) Your whataboutism is spectacular! Unsurprised by its use because that’s the primary sign of a libtard.
New deaths since my last comment, none of them caused by a bus lane – I wonder if the AP will devote any posts to them?
https://kval.com/news/local/investigation-underway-after-deadly-clackamas-county-crash-springwater-road-dodge-ram-chrysler-pt-cruiser#
https://kval.com/news/local/vehicle-pedestrian-crash-shuts-down-northbound-hwy-99-at-prairie-road#
https://kval.com/news/local/police-driver-flees-scene-after-fatal-crash-in-josephine-county#
Way to double down on whataboutism! Good troll!
New road deaths since my last post unrelated to bus lanes:
https://kval.com/news/local/fatal-rollover-crash-on-highway-95-claims-life-of-john-day-man-injures-passenger#
https://kval.com/news/nation-world/2-men-killed-in-wrong-way-crash-in-virginia-police-say-deadly-accident-investigation-lynchburg-police-department-collision-fatalities-witnesses-candlers-mountain-road#
(a twofer on this one!)
The AP is working hard on a post on all of these deaths, but to summarize, he’s going to say if you divide them by billions of miles driven, they hardly died at all. A matter of a few scratches, is all.
Keep in mind that all the deaths I linked to above happened in the same area (Eugene Oregon), the place where APs story about his brother who got a dislocated shoulder, since he posted that story. One dislocated shoulder versus 10 deaths.
And the AP can’t bother to write a single word about any of them.
Are you paid to troll, or do you just not have a life?
I’m paid in Ghostbuxx (TM) by the ghosts of the people killed in the links I gave.
Ah, a shill for people who drive intoxicated. That tracks.
Tomato Joe, tracks had nothing to do with it – these people were all killed in cars, not trains.
Derp.
Another one (no mention of bus lanes, but maybe the driver was distracted thinking about how dangerous bus lanes were)
https://kval.com/news/local/police-bandon-man-killed-another-injured-in-highway-101-head-on-crash#
https://kval.com/news/local/lane-county-sheriff-investigates-deadly-early-morning-crash-on-northwest-expressway#
Interesting how all these deaths are suddenly happening – could it be Eugene’s bus lane?