For a client in the Middle East, we are looking for good examples of this situation:
Two high speed streets intersect, and the intersection features sliplanes (shortcuts for right turns) which in turn create islands (in green above). The islands are big enough that bus stops can be placed on the island. Transit lines run east-west and north-south (not turning at this intersection.)
One bus stop on an island like this is common enough, but I'd like to find examples of the situation above, where two intersecting bus lines stop on the same island — one nearside, the other farside — so that the island becomes a very easy transfer point, at least if you're travelling (in this drawing) between points west and points south, or between points east and points north.
If you've seen this arrangement, please leave a comment! Thanks!
I thought of Jagtvej and Norrebrogade in Copenhagen:
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Jagtvej/@55.6943527,12.5489806,133m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x46525255b6a1d519:0x369d063699189d1c?hl=en But the bus stops are before the intersection. (Also much smaller scale.)
“we are looking for good examples of this situation”
There are no good examples of this situation. It’s an extreme prioritizing motor traffic over everything else, a horrible place for walking, taking transit, let alone bicycling.
First of all, these high speed slip lanes should be removed from the project and replaced by normal right turning lanes. Also, expanding the junction suggests that the streets are congested, so it would be a good idea to take away some lanes from motor traffic and give them to space-efficient modes of transport.
Well I don’t have a “good” example of such an arrangement (much as per @user1), but I do have examples from Ottawa.
Here’s one at the westbound Queensway offramp at Moodie Drive:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.340402,-75.841255,3a,75y,282.34h,84.36t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s-1SKA1BDuB2u3eTaDSwX3Q!2e0?hl=en
And another on the other (eastbound) side of the same interchange:
https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.336334,-75.84124,3a,75y,105.52h,88.46t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sDNjtydQncM_j-6cu8alv0A!2e0?hl=en
The latter has a stop request button for those heading east, which you can see in the Streetview image. But also as you can see the shelter is set up for the southbound stop, and its seat is facing the wrong way. So what you as a passenger end up doing (and I have done this) after pressing the stop request button is walking over to the shelter and then standing in the shelter next to the seat looking “back” towards the ramp behind where this image was taken from.
The shelter really should have been set up closer to the ramp and looking north as the field of view is quite expansive up the offramp and over the bridge (but put the opening on the south side – no need to let in those cold northern winds).
They’re bleak enough in summer, but in winter they’re horrible.
Here’s another from the Queensway, but this time at an onramp splitter island, at Woodroffe:
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Ottawa,+ON/@45.36216,-75.768905,3a,75y,313.7h,90.67t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sTCWOjk65arYnYVcxZ_mpYQ!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x4cce05b25f5113af:0x8a6a51e131dd15ed?hl=en
This is probably about as good as it gets in Ottawa for this type of thing. We probably have a few more in the eastern suburbs along the Queensway/174 but I can’t think of any offhand that are at arterial-arterial intersections as their islands are generally too small; they’re all at interchange ramps.
In San Francisco, at the 16th+Mission and 24th+Mission BART stations, there are bus stops consolidated to two street corners like this. But instead of slip lanes for motor traffic, there are BART station entrances.
A couple of examples from Edmonton, Alberta:
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.542883,-113.565675,3a,75y,121.6h,90.41t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sTkgi3qkMeJSXMytCAFOhkg!2e0
This is 142 Street and Stony Plain Road. Interestingly, during the daytime there’s no through service on 142 Street, so buses stopping at the near side of the island then immediately turn right and pass by the farside stop.
https://www.google.com/maps/@53.490524,-113.57108,3a,75y,145.93h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1slvm98cCDxLwUeC1NHz-1uQ!2e0
At Whitemud Drive and 53 Ave, freeway offramps intersecting the road create four of these islands; three of them have this stop arrangement. Buses in this area wander all over the place, so I’m not sure how many connections would actually be made in this area.
A couple I am familiar with in Toronto:
Woodbine Avenue and O’Connor Drive (a 3-leg intersection; the southbound stop is for a bus that has just finished turning left)
St. Clair Avenue and Victoria Park Avenue
Both intersections are with roads posted at 50 km/h.
Island bus stops are not only bad for pedestrians, they are also bad for buses. The problem is that when one bus is using the stop, the island isn’t big enough for another bus to stop behind it, so the second bus needs to wait for the first bus to move out of the way before it can open its doors. Sometimes, it’s even worse, for instance:
– In the case of the nearside stop, it takes an additional signal cycle for the first bus to move out of the way, even after passenger loading is finished
– If the bus lacks an exclusive lane, which it all-too-often does, often, a single car waiting for the light prevents the bus behind it from opening the doors until the light turns green and the car in front of it moves. Needless to say, if the bus opens the doors in front of a green light, the light will usually turn red by the time the bus is ready to move, forcing a day of yet another signal cycle.
– Many island bus stops are too small for a large bus to open the back door, so everybody getting off has to crowd to the front. Even if the back door can be used under ideal conditions, a single stopped car in front of the bus, waiting for the light, can force the bus into a front-door only configuration.
– If islands are served where multiple frequent routes converge, buses can sometimes be queued 3-4 deep waiting for their turn at the stop. Bus riders experience what is, for all intents and purposes a traffic jam, only, unlike a normal traffic jam, car drivers can zip right through in the other lane, oblivious to all.
– If you want to transfer to the bus stopped ahead of you in line, too bad. The doors won’t open on your bus until the one you are trying to catch leaves without you.
ALL the negativity from the internet. Jarrett may be searching for the best examples of these so he can argue their weaknesses even in the optimal implementation…
…but even if not, I’m stuck in a loop of answering the objections, so…
1) It looks like part of the curb is being removed to make a dedicated stopping-space for buses. Also, the islands seem long enough for two buses.
2a) If the grid is good, the only transfer on north-south lines should be between Express and Local. So there should never be more than two buses at the same stop. Anyway such transfers only happen at Express stops – so hopefully these can be placed at large enough islands or in other places.
2b)This eliminates the cutout-length problem, and reduces the problem of queueing buses trapped in a loading/signal-change delay loop of doom.
3a) As this is in the Middle East, we’re probably hoping for comfortable air-conditioned shelters, so combining shelters may significantly reduce cost, as well as easy north-south/east-west transfers.
2c) A lot of these issues can be reduced if the light-cycle is reactive to the desires of the buses. I.e. the lights change for them on demand.
3b) Transferring across the intersection will be really nasty. So hopefully we include a disabled accessible air-conditioned bridge or tunnel of an appropriately classy nature, or at least a light-cycle that allows the trip to be made without waiting twice.
4) No way around the fact that sliproads are dangerous for pedestrians – and the distance is so short that going up and over or down and under will annoy. Fight for mitigation: Speed-bumps. A lower speed limit and enforcement cameras. A traffic-light controlled pedestrian crossing with pedestrian priority.
@Neil
I hadn’t seen your comment before posting mine, but the example from Copenhagen really shows how it should be done properly: bus lanes, bike lanes, only one lane for cars going straight on (with one exception), rather tight corners for right turning cars. And consequently, lack of these triangular islands, which could at most be “scraps from the table” for transit users.
David in Ottawa’s comment made me look quickly out along the 174 in Ottawa, and yes – there is a decent example there: Jeanne D’Arc/174.
https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=45.468509,-75.544079&spn=0.003913,0.006539&t=h&z=18
It is a highway interchange but the ramp terminal/arterial intersection provides the configuration you’re looking for.
Oh, and this will be replaced with LRT (2023…maybe) :-p
It is also possible to slightly mitigate the danger of the slip lanes by sort of kinking them instead of having a smooth radius. That way drivers at least have to have their foot on the brake pedal when they are approaching the the crosswalk.
@Paul Croft
I guess I have to head out to the east end a bit more often.
Ya, that does look pretty decent, and better than my Woodroffe example. It basically couldn’t be done any better – both stops have shelters, the slip lane has a ped crossing with a yield and it is even designed to accommodate right turns by the buses, thus avoiding the problem of someone waiting on the cross street (Jeanne d’Arc) missing a bus they could have taken which would otherwise pass behind them on the slip lane. Heck, someone even thought to put a bike rack in there.
There are no good examples of this because it’s an inherently pedestrian-hostile design. Unless there’s an overpass leading to the bus stop. It’s a recipe for running people over trying to get to the bus stop — cars do not obey the yield signs on the slip lanes, for obvious reasons.
Portland, OR, SE Powell and SE Foster, could have the situation you are referring to, but it appears there is only an actual stop on one side. There is a dedicated bus-only lane next to the curb, just not an actual stop.
https://maps.google.com/?ll=45.497389,-122.611465&spn=0.001034,0.001623&t=h&z=20
People can say what they want, but as long as pedestrians need to transfer between those 2 buses, then the island is the best way to help them to connect. Missing that connection and/or having to walk 15 minutes to connect between 2 buses is ridiculous.
Jarrett has asked us to think about what it is like to drive, if we had a gate at the end of the driveway, and if the gate opened only every 30 minutes. Well, by forcing somebody to walk 15 minutes, you are essentially making that problem worse, because that person is forced to time the opening with the extra walk. What should be a 15 minute car trip might now become a 1.5 hour trip [e.g.: 30 minutes [30 minute frequency, right?] + 15 minute walk between buses + 30 minute trip + 15 minutes of walking before and after].
By criticizing this, you are all being unreasonable. It’s not as if cars wait politely transit vehicles before or after the traffic lights. Waiting before the lights is never good, but if it can reduce the average passenger’s trip time, then we have a good case for this. We can clearly see this in Greater Vancouver’s lack of proper exchanges at the various places, like Steveston Exchange, and at Annacis Island. Before, the bus stops at Steveston Exchange used to be so far from the intersection, that it was about a full mile to walk it, making it about 20-30 minutes to connect. I found out the hard way in the hot summer day! The map was surprisingly deceptive.
If these bus stops are so bad, then how is it an improvement to make the rider become a pedestrian and then force him to walk for 15 minutes, over the exact same turf that you are afraid of? If they can connect on the island, then they may never need to step on the road, making them a bit safer.
I’m so disappointed in Translink and all of you. :^(
When I first thought of this, I thought that it would be a sure fire thing. Who could possibly disagree with the idea? The buses all ready travel over those roads. They wouldn’t need to detour. Yet, somebody everybody, except for maybe Jarrett, seems to not like this idea.
[P.S.: I’ll follow the comment feed for a while, until the discussion dies down; if I don’t reply to comments years from now, then it will be because I don’t know about them.]
Actually, I take back some of what I said. It seems that not all comments were negative. My bad.
Have a nice day despite what I said. :^)
Los Angeles example!
The northwest side of the intersection of Riverside Dr and Los Feliz Blvd, where the slip lane turns right onto Crystal Springs Dr.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Riverside+Dr+%26+Los+Feliz+Blvd,+Los+Angeles,+CA+90027/@34.1170374,-118.2716712,444m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x80c2c0c6ca726fcb:0x3c088b9584a23cb9
As a current Seattleite I can only think of the Montlake Freeway Interchange, which only has a stop on one side, but connects directly to the freeway stop below the overpass:
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.6436954,-122.3044426,131m/data=!3m1!1e3
It works pretty well. The only issue is that the bus tends to get stuck behind cars on a red light, and so it needs to stop twice.
Thanks, everyone! Really appreciate the ideas! Jarrett
Late comment, but Winnipeg has three intersections set up this way along Bishop Grandin Blvd, a suburban semi-highway. Here’s one island, at Bishop & St. Mary’s; the next two intersections east of here also have the same configuration.
https://maps.google.ca/?ll=49.830651,-97.115192&spn=0.001515,0.002637&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=49.83059,-97.115179&panoid=xQNcWAaMv7q3sRNB9Nn-fQ&cbp=12,301.04,,0,4.58
This is a “good example” in terms of amenities, as it has a large shelter and an electronic next-bus display, which make transfers comfortable once you’ve actually made your way onto the island.