FREEWAY CONTRAFLOW BUS LANES: SOME POLICY AND TECHNICAL ISSUES

With the reservation of a lane for contraflow buses, care must be taken to assure that the remaining off-peak direction capacity is still greater than demand. Projects in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and California have been compared here to note where these projects are operating most effectively. In New York and New Jersey the CBL's end in tunnels terminating in roadways which fan out, almost free of interference with peak-direction traffic. Even though contraflow traffic is an unorthodox operation, in none of the three busiest CBL projects can an abnormal trend in accident rates be established. Unless a shift from automobiles to buses can clearly be attributed to the CBL's, the desirability of some CBL's may be questioned if reduction of VMT is adopted as a public policy.

• Corporate Authors:

  Institute of Traffic Engineers

  2029 K Street, NW
  Washington, DC    20006
• Authors:
  • Link, D
• Publication Date: 1975-1

Media Info

• Pagination: p. 31-34
• Serial:
  • Traffic Engineering
  • Volume: 45
  • Issue Number: 1
  • Publisher: Institute of Traffic Engineers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bus lanes; Crash rates; Freeway operations; Transportation policy; Vehicle miles of travel
• Old TRIS Terms: Reverse flow
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Policy; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00082881
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 26 1975 12:00AM