Note that at least one of the bus drivers quoted seems to see the virtues of eliminating cars entirely from this heavily trafficked area: 

David Woloch, a deputy transportation commissioner for the city, said that by early July the city will mark the lane that runs beside the bus bulbs as a bus-only lane, from Houston Street to Ann and Vesey Streets. And, he said, the Police Department will enforce the bus-only restriction by ticketing cars that encroach on the lane.

Bus drivers were skeptical.

"I think it's a waste," the driver of the M1 bus that was blocked by the cab and the double-parked truck said of the bus bulbs. He would not give his name because he said he did not want to draw the attention of his superiors at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. "It's not going to do anything. Get rid of the cars and that'll do something."

On another day this week, a driver on another M1 bus was also skeptical. He said that the police do not do enough to enforce bus lanes elsewhere in the city. "That's never worked," said the driver, who also asked that his name not be used. "It doesn't work on Madison. It doesn't work on Fifth Avenue because people park in the lane. Or cabs drop off in the lane."

Paul J. Browne, a deputy police commissioner, said 1,862 tickets were issued last year to drivers for using a bus lane. In addition, 4,205 tickets were issued for parking in a bus lane and 2,669 tickets were issued for parking at a bus stop.

That works out to just under 24 tickets a day in the three categories of tickets combined. He said the tickets were primarily issued in Manhattan.

So far this year, he said, 3,537 tickets have been issued for bus lane or bus stop violations.

"It may be a perception among some drivers, but in fact there is enforcement," Mr. Browne said of the bus drivers' complaints. "It may not be at the level they want or in an ideal world the level we want, but the fact remains we do enforce it every day."

Photo: Cary Conover for the New York Times

According to a more-than-a-little-snarky post on Curbed, the first of Lower Broadway's hotly anticipated bus bulbs has been constructed on Broadway south of Spring Street.

As Streetsblog wrote when the DOT announced the plan to construct the bulbs back in March, this is a noteworthy development for several reasons:

The benefits of bus bulbs include preventing buses from being delayed, reducing sidewalk congestion, providing space for bus shelters and other amenities, and reducing pedestrian crossing times.

In a small but very tangible way, bus bulbs may single-handedly change the pecking order on Lower Broadway by forcing other vehicles to wait behind or detour around loading and unloading buses rather than the buses having to defer to them.

Most promising, DOT appears to be taking a far more experimental approach in this particular project. Rather than allowing itself to become bogged down in complicated, expensive street engineering, it sounds like the agency will be creating the bus bulbs by putting down temporary curbs, filling them in with concrete, and just gerrymandering the drainage. The results might not look particularly pretty but advocates have, for years, been calling on DOT to show more willingness to conduct quick-and-dirty street design experiments.

And now that it's done, this one doesn't look half bad after all.

Photo via Curbed

Tomorrow, the Department of Transportation will make the first public announcement of its Lower Manhattan Transit Priority Plan. We don't have all of the details but the redesign plan for Broadway south of Houston Street sounds like it is oriented around making bus service faster and more effective, providing more sidewalk space to pedestrians and bus patrons and, perhaps most significant, making the changes happen much faster, cheaper and with far less bureaucracy than usual.

Sources say the plan calls for the creation of "bus bulbs," a design in which the sidewalk is extended into the street at bus stops. Bus bulbs allow a bus to stay in its lane to pick up and discharge passengers instead of having to pull over to the curb. The benefits of bus bulbs include preventing buses from being delayed, reducing sidewalk congestion, providing space for bus shelters and other amenities, and reducing pedestrian crossing times.

In a small but very tangible way, bus bulbs may single-handedly change the pecking order on Lower Broadway by forcing other vehicles to wait behind or detour around loading and unloading buses rather than the buses having to defer to them.

Most promising, DOT appears to be taking a far more experimental approach in this particular project. Rather than allowing itself to become bogged down in complicated, expensive street engineering, it sounds like the agency will be creating the bus bulbs by putting down temporary curbs, filling them in with concrete, and just gerrymandering the drainage. The results might not look particularly pretty but advocates have, for years, been calling on DOT to show more willingness to conduct quick-and-dirty street design experiments.

The Daily News and New York Sun will have the details tomorrow morning.

And here is more information about bus bulbs than you could ever want: The Federal Transit Administration's Evaluation of Bus Bulbs (PDF).

Photo: Aaron Naparstek, July 2006