Man, we’ve given bus riders a sweet deal. They reduce the number of cars on the road and the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. In exchange they get a host of perks, including:
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The comfort of waiting in the refreshing air for buses that follow unpredictable schedules.
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The ability to build your persuasive skills by hinting to the guy manspreading across two seats that he should make room for you to sit down.
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The serenity of staring out the window and calculating how much of your life is spent in traffic as the bus crawls on clogged HOV lanes.
Clearly, bus riders are living the dream. Buses are now allowed to take shortcuts on transit-only lanes to avoid heavy traffic. What more could commuters ask for?
That’s the topic of our latest poll at HeraldNet.com, asking the best way to get buses moving faster on I-5. Your answer – resoundingly, with 63 percent of the vote – was that they already have enough advantages.
It’s dog eat dog on the freeway, and since most of the dogs in this metaphor are driving in cars, it’s understandable people don’t like anything that could make their drive longer.
But what about letting buses drive on the shoulder, an idea that has been bandied about? They’d skip ahead of some HOV drivers, but that wouldn’t slow others much. Yet only 20 percent of you voted for that idea.
How about raising the minimum for the HOV lane to three people? If we want fewer people in cars, we need to make it faster to carpool, right? Nope, just 13 percent liked that idea.
OK, then how about adding toll lanes like the ones on I-405? That idea got a whopping 4 percent. We’ll support toll lanes when buses fly.
— Doug Parry, @parryracer
Next up, we’d like to know what you think about REI’s plan to close all its stores for Black Friday.
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