bus failure

[mindstalk]

I noticed a failure mode today, of bus stops before an intersection. Bus is at the stop, having exchanged passengers. Light is green. Bus cannot pull left, because of a steady flow of traffic. Bus cannot advance, because a car ahead of it wants to make a right turn, but is waiting for pedestrians to clear. Bus is stuck.

If the stop is on the far side of the intersection, the bus might still not be able to pull left for a while, but it won't have a right turn blockage.

Hmm, OTOH given widespread street parking, the bus can't advance anyway because there are parked cars ahead. For this to work better, you'd need two lanes of traffic and no parking.

Or, of course, you change your priorities, and have bulb-out bus stops so that the bus doesn't have to leave the traffic lane to change passengers. This means the bus may stop cars behind it, but hey, priorities. Bus may have 10-100 people on it, after all.

Comments

[squirrelitude]

My observation is that, for better or worse, a bus driver trying to get back into the flow of traffic will often simply edge out into the lane, and people in smaller vehicles will yield.