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Design Recommendations for Tempo BRT

Recommended traffic safety design improvements to address reckless and careless driver behavior on International Blvd (E 14th)

To City of Oakland - AC Transit ILC

The following memorandum summarizes Traffic Violence Rapid Response’s design recommendations for the International Blvd. Bus Rapid Transit corridor based on comprehensive site observations (detailed in the attached report) and transportation planner peer review.

Our organization maintains the strong position that the City of Oakland and AC Transit should continue to support the International Blvd. Bus Rapid Transit project and install necessary rapid-response traffic calming devices that will improve safety for all people traveling along International Blvd., as well as bring the design of the system more in line with international performance BRT standards.

Design Recommendations

  1. Install vertical speed control elements at transit island approaches (e.g. speed cushions with wheel cutouts) to allow access for AC Transit buses and emergency vehicles while slowing would-be transit lane violators.[1]
  2. Install vertical separation elements along International Blvd. between travel lanes and bus-only lanes such as “armadillo”-style separators to prevent drivers speeding along bus-only lanes.[2] 
  3. Install full-lane vertical treatments across the bus-only lane with wheel channels for larger vehicles such as AC Transit buses and emergency vehicles to prevent drivers speeding along bus-only lanes.[3]
  4. Install hardened center line treatments such as “armadillos” or other low delineators, with or without vertical posts, at key intersections along International Blvd to prevent illegal turning maneuvers.[4]
  5. Install red bus-only pavement color to bus-only lane entries at cross streets to reduce left turns from cross streets into the bus-only lane.[5] 

Policy Recommendations

  1. Revise City of Oakland Fire Code to include exempt mountable vertical separation traffic calming tools from clear-lane obstruction requirements

Report

Introduction

This document catalogs types of traffic safety behaviors observed on the International Blvd. Bus Rapid Transit corridor related to pedestrian safety, vehicle speeding and dangerous driving. This document also provides design improvements from the NACTO Urban Street Design Guide and Transit Street Design Guide to address observed traffic safety behaviors that can be implemented quickly at low-cost.

Document Outline

  1. List of observed traffic safety behaviors
  2. Categories of proposed interventions along roadway that could be standardized
  3. Recommended focus areas

Observed Traffic Safety Behaviors

There are 5 primary issues that enable dangerous driving that “piggybacks” off of the bus only lane intended for TEMPO. We document them in order of severity (worst in terms of pedestrian safety) below.

Behavior 1: Speeding in bus-only lane

Drivers use the uncongested bus-only lane to speed in front of congested traffic. These drivers often travel at high speeds for several blocks at a time, often running red lights and endangering others on the street. This behavior can be observed every few minutes along portions of International Blvd.

Vehicle seen speeding in the bus only lane.

This reckless behavior is especially dangerous when drivers speed past bus stops where pedestrians are either waiting or crossing to and from bus stations. Speeding drivers can reach and maintain speeds that make it impossible to safely stop should a pedestrian step in front of them. Worse, congestion in the outside lane reduces visibility at the crosswalk, increasing the risk a pedestrian will “pop out” from the travel lane and in front of the driver speeding in the bus only lane. This behavior is especially common along portions of the corridor with a hardened center line (see diagram below).

An example popular multi-block run from 45th to 52nd Ave. Using the bus lane, vehicles speed about 7 blocks and can take advantage of the hardened center lane to build up speed over multiple blocks, only slowing down (without stopping) to run 2 red lights (shown as stars) before reaching 52nd (which is also often jumped to continue the run). See Appendix A: Videos of speeding in bus-only lanes

Proposed design treatment:

  • Install vertical speed control elements at bus platform approaches to slow transit lane violators and maintain access for buses and emergency vehicles. Speed control elements such as speed cushions should include wheel cutouts for larger vehicles such as AC Transit buses and emergency vehicles.[6]
  • Install vertical separation elements along the corridor between travel lane and bus-only lane such as “armadillo”-style separators.[7]

Behavior 2: Left turn lane used to jump queue

Drivers use the left turn lane to jump the queue at traffic signals. When the traffic light turns green for traffic traveling along International Boulevard, the driver accelerates rapidly from the left turn lane into the bus-only lane across the intersection, then continues traveling in the bus-only lane accelerating past congested traffic.

Black SUV seen performing a queue jump from a left turn lane, accelerating through the crosswalk at an active bus platform around an (also speeding) pickup truck.
International Blvd at 38th Avenue with arrows demonstrating illegal queue jump maneuver from left turn lane to bus-only lane. See Appendix B for example video footage of left turn lane used to jump queue at 38th Avenue.

Proposed Design Treatment:

  • Use flexposts, bollards, or poured concrete to create a pedestrian refuge in the middle of crosswalks at stations. This pinches access into the bus lane to reduce the ability for vehicles to utilize it at high speeds as part of a queue jump at an intersection.
  • Install vertical speed control elements near crosswalks to slow violators and discourage queue jumps.[8]

Behavior 3 : Bus lane used for illegal u-turns

Drivers frequently use bus only lanes for illegal left turns and u-turns. This behavior commonly occurs squarely within pedestrian crosswalks as drivers try to avoid hardened centerlines adjacent to the turn lanes. This behavior especially endangers people walking in the crosswalk to access bus boarding platforms.

Vehicle utilizes bus only lane to perform illegal u-turn at 55th and International.

Proposed Design Treatment:

  • Install hardened center line treatments such as “armadillos” or other low delineators, with or without vertical posts, along International Blvd.[9]
Example maneuver observed at 47th and International. Drivers combine bus lane with center line dividers to make illegal u-turns that involve run-throughs of multiple active crosswalks around stations. See Appendix C: Videos of illegal u-turns on International.
Example maneuver observed at 19th and International. Drivers here likely become frustrated with inability to make left turns when headed NW on International for multiple blocks and take this opportunity to make an illegal left turn using the bus lanes as buffers for turning into oncoming traffic. Instead of a safe left turn where they only cross 2 crosswalks, this maneuver is far more dangerous, requires speeding into oncoming traffic, and results in the vehicle being maneuvered (more dangerously) through 4 crosswalks (twice as many as a controlled turn).

Behavior 4: Cross traffic turning left into bus-only lane

Drivers are frequently turning left from cross streets onto International Blvd. and are, whether intentionally or unintentionally, turning into the bus-only lane instead of the travel lane. While this behavior in itself may not be exceptionally dangerous, it may reinforce other more dangerous behaviors where drivers use the bus-only lanes to speed and pass queued car traffic.

Confused driver turning north and west left onto International northbound into the bus only lane instead of the legal lane for personal vehicles.
Example diagram at International Blvd. and 50th Avenue, showing a left turn into the bus only lane, instead of the outside travel lane.

Proposed treatments:

  • Install red bus-only pavement color to bus-only lane entries at cross streets.[10] 
  • Install vertical separation elements along the corridor between travel lane and bus-only lane such as “armadillo”-style separators.[11] 
  • Install full-lane vertical treatments across the bus-only lane with wheel channels for larger vehicles such as AC Transit buses and emergency vehicles.[12]
  • Install cat track markings to guide left-turning motorists into the travel lane rather than the bus lane.

Behavior 5: Illegal left turns using bus only lane as turning lane

Drivers commonly use the bus-only lane as a left turn lane causing congestion and bus performance issues. Because these locations are not intended for left turns, drivers must speed recklessly as they turn to avoid colliding with ongoing traffic. This endangers oncoming drivers as well as people riding bicycles along International Blvd. or walking in a crosswalk along International Blvd.

A minivan with no plates makes an illegal left in front of a marked no-left-or-u-turn sign at 20th and International. Full video in appendix.
A vehicle waits in the bus lane at 64th to perform a left turn into a shopping center on the south side of International Boulevard.
Examples of illegal left turns from bus-only lanes observed at 64th Avenue and International Blvd. See appendix D for videos of drivers using bus-only lanes for left turns

Proposed treatments:

  • Install vertical separation elements along the corridor between travel lane and bus-only lane such as “armadillo”-style separators.[13] 
  • Install full-lane vertical treatments across the bus-only lane with wheel channels for larger vehicles such as AC Transit buses and emergency vehicles.[14]

Focus Areas

Based on our research, we observed certain “hot spots” that would benefit from one or more of the above treatments described. They are listed below, in no order of primacy:

  • TEMPO station at 50th and International
    • In the middle of long stretches of physically blocked lefts which creates a highway effect in the middle lane for vehicles speeding. As a result, vehicles reach dangerous speeds as they approach busy crosswalks during their multi-block runs.
  • TEMPO station at 39th and International
    • Illegal u-turns are common here. Gating this intersection would at least make the u-turns more carefully executed and risk blind u-turns into pedestrians accessing the bus platform (and hopefully deter them a little more in general).
    • Note: queue jumping just up the street at 38th Avenue is quite common which leads to vehicles accelerating, especially NW-bound towards downtown Oakland which creates a situation where vehicles are accelerating to cut in front of legal traffic right in the middle of the crosswalk
  • “Downtown Fruitvale” (section of International bounded by Fruitvale to north and 37th to the south)
    • Unique challenges may require interventions very specifically designed to the local context in this area:
      • Pedestrian density: High volume of foot traffic at all hours of the day.
      • Double parking: Vehicles are frequently parked for long periods in the car travel lane which forces drivers into the bus lane to navigate around.
      • High risk of collision: While overall speeds are generally lower than in more free flowing sections of International to north and south, vehicles using the bus lane to bypass congestion are moving through far more pedestrian dense environments.
    • Primary intersection of concern in this area:
      • TEMPO station at 34th and International

Proposed Intervention Patterns

We believe the following interventions would be valuable along the entire corridor.

Speed bumps before TEMPO stations

Add speed tables or speed bumps before TEMPO bus platforms. This will slow down vehicles speeding along the bus lanes without impacting bus performance near where pedestrian crossings to access platforms are.

Example configuration of speed bumps at approach to bus stations. Intersection shown is at 50th and International.

Gated intersections at bus lane entrances

Gate intersections with vertical paint (e.g. flex posts) to make it clear the bus is only allowed in the bus only lane (e.g. when it’s unclear for drivers making a left turn onto International) and to create visual constraints to slow down drivers cutting the queue at intersections via misuse of the left turn lane and the bus only lane.

Example interventions to more clearly physically delineate entrance to bus only lane

Better protected crosswalks at stations

Use cones, flexposts, or poured concrete to better protect pedestrian crossings at stations and pinch access into the bus lane to reduce the ability for vehicles to utilize it at high speeds as part of a queue jump at an intersection.

Example of where raised concrete could be added to reduce the amount of open pavement that is available to vehicles speeding and queue jumping.

Better demarcated bus lanes

Clearly mark the bus only lane. There are many sections where it is unclear even to well-meaning drivers that this is a bus lane. Paint it red, add small physical separators like curb stops arranged linearly to create a buffer.

The following images demonstrate what typical international gold-standard BRT systems utilize, at a minimum, to physically separate their BRT right-of-ways from other freeflow traffic from around the world.

Example of a system of small mountable plastic curb stops in use in Mexico City for their BRT system.
Example of a system of slightly taller concrete curb stops mounted linearly in use in Bogota, Colombia for their BRT system.
Example of a system of more tightly-intervalled concrete curb stops in use in Jakarta, Indonesia for their BRT system.

Appendix: Site Observation Photos and Videos

Raw repository of images related to Traffic Violence Rapid Response research along International is held in this Google Photo album.

Appendix A: Example footage of of drivers speeding in bus-only lanes

Appendix B: Example video footage of left turn lane used to jump queue

Appendix C: Videos of illegal u-turns on International

Appendix D: Videos of drivers using bus-only lanes for left turns