The Virtues of Repurposing Car Lanes for Buses
Slate business and economics correspondent Matt Yglesias ran an item today that nails the issue at the crux of the battle for the soul of Ashland Avenue. The CTA has proposed converting two of the travel lanes on the four-lane street to dedicated bus lanes, but the anti-BRT crowd is fighting the plan to take away space from cars and give it to people on buses. The Nimbys have floated their own proposal, disingenuously called “Modern Express Buses,” that would involve plenty of window dressing but keep buses bogged down in traffic, with zero inconvenience for drivers. Yglesias points out the virtues of reconfiguring streets like Ashland:
But the biggest possibility for bus transit wins requires something even more contentious than spending money—repurposing lanes. Virtually every street in America dedicates the majority of its space to private cars, whether as travel lanes or parking lanes. Far and away the cheapest way to speed the movement of people through congested space is to take some of those lanes away from cars and give them to buses. That will decrease your movement of vehicles, but increase your movement of people since buses are a much more efficient use of space. And it can be done at a fraction of the cost of building new transportation infrastructure from scratch.
Hopefully, as more Chicagoans come to understand the value of repurposing lanes from cars and giving them to bus riders, support will grow for making historic changes to Ashland, and the weak-sauce MEB proposal will end up on the dustbin of history.
Stay in touch
Sign up for our free newsletter
More from Streetsblog Chicago
Tasty news: Friedman Properties is trying to break the Clark outdoor dining stalemate by applying for street closure permits
Mayor Johnson's administration and Ald. Reilly haven't yet found common ground on bringing back the popular car-free zone. Will this make the difference?
Today’s Headlines for Thursday, April 18
Roger that! Streetsblog SF editor Roger Rudick offers constructive criticism of Chicago’s downtown bike network
"There were blocks that felt very safe and very secure," he said. "But then you're immediately – voom! – disgorged into three lanes of moving traffic with no protection."
City announces $2M federal grant to address harms caused by I-290 by improving walk/bike/transit access
The Mayor's Office says the money will fund "improvements for people walking and bicycling on existing streets and paths surrounding and crossing the corridor."
