Talk:Bus lane

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[edit] "Due to the fact that a bus lane needs the same (or greater) width as a regular lane"

Removed this claim. Normal lanes are (normally) wide enough for any vehicle, including a bus. Buses are not the widest vehicles on the road, so bus lanes can be narrow than normal lanes.

I have also removed: "It has to be constructed to the same or even higher standards as usual lanes, as the traffic weight loads tend to be high.". Same argument, lorries are much heavier than buses. Bus stops often need strengthening, but that is independent of whether it is in a bus lane or not. TiffaF 18:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your removal. Howver, the bus stop issue is not due to weight alone, but due to the concentrated start-stop procedure at this single place all the time. Same issues as at traffic signal stop lines. MadMaxDog 00:59, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] criticism

I'm removing the criticism section. It is a great feature of many wikipedia articles, and much needed when people get carried away with the beauty of say, vegetarianism, or the GOP. that said, I don't see anything particularly biased about anything in this article, it's just a definition. Or, if you drivers out there need it, you'll at least have to come up with better reasons than "it reduces the roads capacity," since it obviously increases the road's capacity by encouraging more people to use public transit. Or have I gone over someone's head? Envirocorrector 00:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the section is certainly needed, as the installation of bus lanes IS a very fought-over and criticised topic in many cities worldwide. Need refs, though. I will look for them, but please excuse me if I should take some time, I am currently very heavily busy on Wikipedia. MadMaxDog 00:52, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know MadMax. Obviously some people are upset about it. Some people are upset about everything. But, since this isn't really a hooray for bus lanes article, it doesn't need a specific criticism page. I mean, you have criticism as half the article, which I would say is excessive. Maybe someone else can weigh in, or we can cut the criticism back, or we can expand the rest with a "hooray for positive change" section.Envirocorrector 11:29, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, looked over it again. In the interest of progress, I'll say this. I like your change to say that bus lanes "reduce capacity for private cars." It addresses my earlier concern nicely. And it's fair to say buses take up space. But, I'm going to source and expand the main article to talk about that stat about a bus rider using up 40 times less room than a car (it's about the space between the vehicles, although I'll have to do some reading). I still think the sentence about other purposes by public officials sounds a bit like biased griping. I mean, I'm sure it would be easy to find the stats for most cities on how much they spend to subsidize driving (new roads, parking meters, gates, bridges, tunnels, etc.) than on public transport. I think what we would find is that tipping that balance back toward busses is, well, just being more socially equitable. But, OK, let's say this. You find your stuff, and I really am fine with some of the criticism, and I'll look into supporting some of my claims that bus lanes rock the world.Envirocorrector 11:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

It could also be said that it is directly theiving from the publics coffers in relation to already paid for roads that were expanded or put in place due to the requirement of such lane / road after consultation, evaluation, and millions of dollars of project planning before also millions of dollars of laying, extending, or resurfacing the roads, only to have it at a later date re-assigned to be a 'bus lane' by some ideological bigot who can't take into account the fact they're causing grievous harm to peak hour flow of traffic.

This is very evident in Sydney, where Moris Iemma and his many ill-thought out 'betterment projects' have come back to bite the average tax payer time and time again. Not to mention bus lanes attract a huge fine if you're caught using them, even if ALL other lanes are gridlocked and there's not a bus in sight. 122.107.42.146 (talk) 12:59, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

With one bus taking 20-100 cars off the road depending on occupancy, bus lanes are quite "occupied" even if they look empty (10-20 buses per hour are enough to equal a lane of normal cars under peak hour circumstances). As for your ranting about stealing of roadspace - they ain't your roads, they are the community's, and if you don't like what your community's politicians do with it, you can take care of that at the ballot box. Ingolfson (talk) 07:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Then again, we shouldn't be having this conversation, as this talk page is about the article, NOT about the subject. But I didn't want to either delete your comment nor let it stand there unanswered. Ingolfson (talk) 07:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)