Auckland Transport have been looking into ways to make it a bit easier to work out if you’re abiding by bus and T2/T3 lane rules – and they have a nifty a bit daft little game to help test your knowledge of the lanes. Here are the details:
In working towards the most efficient use of the city’s roads, Auckland Transport is trialling new ways to mark bus and transit lanes. These changes are aimed to help motorists identify the 50m maximum entry point where they can move into a bus/transit lane in order to turn left at an intersection.
Changes to road markings include:
- The use of a solid green line, adjacent to the solid white line, demarcating a bus or transit lane
- Changing the solid green/white line (marking a bus/transit lane) to a broken green/white line 50 metres in advance of an intersection. This shows the maximum point where motorists can legally enter a bus/transit lane to make a left turn at an intersection.
These trials will take place on:
Quay St
Fanshawe St
Great South Rd
Vincent St
Remuera RdIn Vincent St we will also be trialling the use of LED pavement markers, in conjunction with painted road markings.
The trial will start in July 2012.
I think it’s good to educate drivers how bus and transit lanes work, so that we can avoid the stupid debates over bus lanes that pop up every once in a while. Here’s a link to the game to test your knowledge.
In not such great news, Auckland Transport also confirmed they caved into the idiotic Orakei Local Board and agreed to turn the Remuera Road bus lanes to a T3 lane – though interestingly only as a trial. I’d love to see the results of the trial and then, if they show it really should be a bus lane (which seems likely), the bus lane eventually return.
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I played it hoping to get to the level where I find out how to get into the T2 lane at the 50m mark to turn left when the T2 lane is already full of (non-qualifying) users queued back 200m from the intersection. Sadly there was no such level.
(Akoranga Dr into College Rd, North Shore, PM peak. Admittedly last time I was there to encounter this it was March, haven’t been there since)
It really distresses me to think that unless the left-greens run a really strong local body campaign then Auckland Council could soon be filled with people who are JUST LIKE the Orakei Local Board. There’s a scary thought!
I think its a really good idea to add the green marker bus lane line beside the lane marking to show that this lane is a bus lane.
This should make it easy to know if its a bus lane or not, as a sign every 2-300m doesn’t give adequate enough notice.
Won’t help the tail backs as you’re supposed to only enter the bus lane 50m before the intersection (or be out of the buslane within 50m if turning into a road with a bus lane).
As for Remuera T2/T3 lanes said it before and I’ll say it again, and again – I don’t much care what they designation they are, as long as they enforce them properly and ensure the parked cars who persist in parking in the bus lanes are towed promptly each and every time.
I like the subliminal “it’s OK to only indicate for 1.5 seconds” message 😉
+1 Greg on the Remuera bus lane.
Went through there this morning and for the first time ever there hasn’t been anything blocking it at the top of the hill between the Meadowbank shops and the Upland Rd shops.
The following is the best explanation of this situation, from Humantransit via Kent Lundberg:
“In most cities, the motorist’s perception is so dominant that their confusions can become political imperatives”
Perfectly explains the daft herald Editorial this morning too. Mr Roughan I presume.
Oh yes, he must have had a bad run in yesterday and wondered why all the great unwashed on the loser cruisers got it so good.
The editorial is wrong on so many levels you don’t know where to start. But surely the key statistic has been left out- 33% of passengers traveling across the bridge at peak time do so on a bus.
Hmm, if it was Roughan, it wasn’t so bad compared to his usual tripe.
The only real issue I saw there when I scanned over it quickly was the bagging of rail and not getting what a North Western busway would provide.
That’s unless there has been a change in editorial in the last hour or so.
As for the comments… *rolls eyes*
**EDIT** Opps, just saw the retardation part:
“As any traveller can see, the busway is operating far under its capacity. There is frequently not a bus in sight.”
“The busway lends itself to a greater variety of public transport solutions. Private shuttles, taxis, cars paying a toll, all might be able to share it under different visions of the city’s future.”
Would a 123 seat shuttle van be able to use the bus lane
Sorry 12 seat shuttle
Shuttles (with a passenger service licence) can use the T2/T3 lanes, even if they don’t have enough passengers. If the shuttle is a private vehicle, it can go in the T2/T3 lanes if they have the required number of people.
They can’t use the lanes marked “bus lane” or “bus only”.
Actually, no, I’m wrong. If it’s got 9 or more seats and a passenger service licence it counts as a bus, and it can use a “bus lane” or “buses only” lane, unless there are signs saying otherwise.
I don’t know if that includes the Northern Busway.