‘Trying to frustrate people out of cars’: What are in-lane bus stops?

Wednesday, 26 July 2023

They’re common in other New Zealand cities, but in-lane bus stops are causing a stir in Hamilton.

Another nine of the traffic-slowing stops are set to be installed city wide, with Climate Emergency Relief Funding (CERF) for five projects coming courtesy of Waka Kotahi.

While some consider them a bus passenger’s boon, one councillor believes they’re a bid to “frustrate people out of cars”. So what are they?

Intended to allow buses easier access to stops by bringing the curb into the lane creating a “bus boarder”, the stops are designed so that buses do not have to turn in and out of traffic but remain in the carriageway for passengers to alight and board.

According to Waka Kotahi, they help eliminate delays for buses and allow easier boarding for those in wheelchairs or with prams.

In June last year a report to council recommended in-lane bus stops on some of the city’s key arterial routes – such as Mill St and Peachgrove and Hukanui roads – to improve the reliability of bus journeys.

“While in-lane bus stops do require private vehicles to wait behind the buses when they stop … this (usually small) delay is often outweighed by benefits to bus passengers,” the transport agency said.

The stops were mentioned at a heated 15-minute cities public meeting in June, where some in the audience said that they would forcibly stop buses if further in-lane stops were installed.

The stop at issue at the event is one of the CERF funded upgrades and is opposite Countdown on Anglesea St.

Councillors have since been told it has been temporarily decommissioned because buses cannot reliably enter and exit the stop.

The four other projects that involving in-lane bus stops are on Thackeray St ($840,000), Hukanui Rd ($1,050,000), Horsham Downs Rd ($1,300,000) and Pembroke St ($1,050,000).

In each case Waka Kotahi will contribute 90% of the funding.

Waka Kotahi says “there is usually little actual impact on general traffic flow”, according to a leaflet on bus stop design.

The agency’s calculations recommend in-lane stops for situations with up to 120 buses an hour and up to 600 cars an hour in the bus’s lane of travel.

Kerbside stops tend to be recommended on busier roads, where 700 to 800 cars pass through the lane each hour.

The stops are not only polarising on Hamilton’s car-centric roads, but around the council chambers too.

Councillor Geoff Taylor, who voted against the Horsham Downs Rd project, says he believes some of his fellow councillors are attempting to “frustrate people out of cars”.

Congestion had increased at Horsham Downs already due to new raised safety platforms at the nearby roundabout, he said.

Adding in-lane bus stops would be “a double whammy”.

“Making it safer seems to be code for slowing down traffic.”

He said council staff told him in-lane bus stops would mean a delay for motorists of about five seconds per person getting on or off.

“If that’s 20 people it’s a hundred seconds.”

Access Hamilton working group lead and councillor Louise Hutt says that the in-lane stop will improve the public’s perception of public transport.

“It improves the reliability of bus times, as buses can more easily merge back into traffic and there's less likely to be potential conflict of cars going around the bus.”

“We only have about 200m of dedicated bus lane in the entire city, and we spend about $2000 per person on roading infrastructure but only $40 per person on public transport infrastructure so our CERF programme ($37~m) is a step in the right direction of rebalancing our transport system to give people real choices.”