![]() ![]() Nearly a quarter-century passed before Hamburg created the world’s second dedicated bus lane in 1963. The world’s first was created in Chicago in 1940. The idea of a dedicated bus lane is not a new one although it’s been slow to take off in the US. Photo courtesy of Chicago & North Western Railway Archives Not surprisingly, the suburban Pomona Valley, South Bay, San Gabriel Valley, Southeast Los Angeles, and San Fernando Valley (all except the latter regions primarily served by non-Metro transit agencies) are served by far fewer if any. Hollywood, Midtown, Mideast Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, and even the Westside are fairly well-served by Rapid Buses. The coverage of the Rapid Bus network itself is actually pretty good. All we have to do are remove the barriers to efficiency - namely, cars. We don’t need to wait for messianic tech toffs to concoct pulp sci-fi solutions like flying Ubers or subterranean Tesla sleds. In other words, we don’t need to build or purchase any new equipment. The best part is we already have the fleet of vehicles. A bit of paint, a sign, and voilà, a bus-only lane. Compared to other mass transit projects - the costs of which inevitably balloon past pre-project estimates - dedicated bus lanes are cheap and easy. It would be so easy to make them rapid in more than just name. The actual rapidity of nominally rapid buses is greatly hindered by the fact that most rapid buses are currently reduced to sharing their lanes with inefficient and unsustainable private automobiles. Foothill Transit‘s Silver Streak has aspects of both BRT and Rapid Bus. Big Blue Bus operates three, Culver City Bus one, and Torrance Transit one. The primary agency responsible for rapid buses is Metro, which operates twenty lines. Currently, any claims to rapidity are mostly down to the fact that they stop at fewer bus stops than do local buses and that they’re equipped with signal preemption transmitters that work within the City of Los Angeles. Metro launched its rapid bus service in 2000. Rapid buses, in local parlance, are express buses with some characteristics of bus rapid transit. Here’s an idea: why not grant dedicated bus-lanes to every length of street used by any rapid bus? ![]() We're moving nearly 70 buses an hour through the Flower Street bus lane each evening! /funsVVdX81 A bird's eye view of a dedicated bus lane in action. ![]()
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