Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Bussing About
A couple of questions I have about public transport. Does anyone out there have the answers?
1) Do buses actually help to reduce air pollution IF cars are well-maintained, and buses continue to belch black diesel exhaust. Maybe it would be better to have 20 clean cars on the road than one dirty bus? (just a hypothesis on my part).
2) Do buses actually help to reduce congestion? In Vancouver they might not always do so, because they make the middle lane chroncically f*cking congested. They pull in and out of this lane once every block (into the curbside bus stop), and cars always have to yield to them, making the middle lane essentially inoperable. Meanwhile the inside lane is reserved for parking, and the outside lane is held up by cars trying to turn against traffic (legally, but annoyingly).
A better system would be what they did in some parts of Auckland (e.g., Mt Eden) where they got rid of on-street parking and made the very inside lane (traditionally reserved for parked cars) a green "bus only" lane. The bus can stop and start as much as it likes without interfering with others. Now if only we could eliminate their emissions....
1) Do buses actually help to reduce air pollution IF cars are well-maintained, and buses continue to belch black diesel exhaust. Maybe it would be better to have 20 clean cars on the road than one dirty bus? (just a hypothesis on my part).
2) Do buses actually help to reduce congestion? In Vancouver they might not always do so, because they make the middle lane chroncically f*cking congested. They pull in and out of this lane once every block (into the curbside bus stop), and cars always have to yield to them, making the middle lane essentially inoperable. Meanwhile the inside lane is reserved for parking, and the outside lane is held up by cars trying to turn against traffic (legally, but annoyingly).
A better system would be what they did in some parts of Auckland (e.g., Mt Eden) where they got rid of on-street parking and made the very inside lane (traditionally reserved for parked cars) a green "bus only" lane. The bus can stop and start as much as it likes without interfering with others. Now if only we could eliminate their emissions....
Comments:
Post a Comment