August 10, 2020

Buses are 34% Faster When New York City Dings Drivers in Bus Lanes

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Here’s a brilliant idea~why not mount cameras on city buses and enforce the bus lane? That’s something that New York city has been doing with ABLE (automated Bus Lane Enforcement) and since last October have issued 40,000 warnings and violations.

Using Automatic Bus Lane Enforcement cameras on four major routes capture drivers that are caught by two different  buses on the supposedly reserved bus lane. While you can imagine transgressing vehicle drivers are none too happy about the enforcement, it has sped up bus route times by 34 percent on some routes.

As Dave Colon with NYC StreetsBlog observes “Under state law, drivers are given warnings for the first 60 days a bus uses an automated enforcement camera. After that 60 days, there’s a graduated fine structure, starting at $50 for a first violation and increasing by $50 every subsequent violation in a 12-month period, for a maximum of $250 per ticket.”

And here’s the interesting part~once vehicle drivers are nailed for being in dedicated bus lanes they don’t do it again. As Department of Transportation Commissioner Polly Trottenberg dryly states People don’t get a lot of repeat violations. They learn the cameras are there and that it makes sense to stay out of the bus lanes.”

New York Transit bus acting  president Craig Cipriano cautions that it’s not the point of transit to write tickets, but to move buses and keep vehicles out of the dedicated bus lanes. You can view the YouTube video below where Mr. Cipriano in his  trademark New York City accent outlines how the bus cameras work .

Image: NYPost

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