Quote:
Originally Posted by Slava
Stupid question for sure, but for these BRT's as we just talking about actual buses that have a dedicated lane? Are they they accordion buses or just the regular buses?
And as far as the dedicated lanes go, is that only part of the route?
I'm just not too clear on how these will work.
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As CliffFletcher said, it will be a mix dedicated transitways and running with the rest of traffic. The dedicated lanes/transitways are mostly along 17th Ave. SE (including the new guideway bridge over Deerfoot Trail) and 14th Street SW.
There are very few, if any, "pullouts" at stops, but there are some other measures to speed up bus traffic.
There will be signal control along the routes, such that traffic lights will respond to an approaching bus by staying green longer or turning green sooner.
At some intersections, there will be transit queue jumps, whereby the bus will be able to pull into a short dedicated lane, and then get an dedicated advanced signal to pull ahead of other traffic. Illustrated below:
Signal control is already being used in Calgary on the 301 north central BRT and 302 southeast BRT.
As for vehicle types, I believe they will throw a bunch of articulated buses on these routes at first, but there will likely still be regular 40 foot buses, which should be fine as ridership won't be near the potential and projected numbers at first and will grow over time. I don't think there are currently enough articulated buses in the fleet to fully serve all these routes, plus the existing 301, 302, 3, and a few other routes that they run on.
Also, the new BRT lines will be branded "MAX" and will likely be colour coded in their naming and branding as per the map above (purple, orange, teal). Not sure what colour the SW BRT will be.