request for information: busways that "cross over" at stations

The image below, of Sydney's M2 freeway at Barclay Road, shows the two directions of a median busway crossing over each other so that buses can stop on a center platform -- without the buses needing to have doors on both sides. 

Another I'm familiar with is on the Los Angeles Harbor Transitway at I-105.  The station is buried under a freeway interchange but the crossovers on the north-south busway are clearly visible.

 

Can anyone identify other examples of this design in busways anywhere in the world?  Please reply in comments if so.  Thanks!

 

Comments

[Electricyvr]

Hurdman station in Ottawa is another
http://goo.gl/maps/mMXa

[mulad]

46th Street station on I-35W in Minneapolis.

[Keith]

It's fairly atypical design, but it does pop up here and there. Other than those already noted, Bellaire Transit Center in Houston has a similar design (minus the busway - it's in the median of an arterial street - see http://goo.gl/maps/5uFL).

[Electricyvr]

Like Bellaire above in more than name, Bellevue Transit Center outside Seattle, WA is an urban exchange on a block with "reversed" bus traffic (and no autos.)
http://goo.gl/maps/0uMV

[ant6n]

What I wonder is whether there are buses which have doors on both sides - but where the doors on the right are designed for street level embarking/disembarking, but on the left they are designed for platform embarking/disembarking. For example when stopping on a street, one can require people to embark in the front and pay/show the fare to the bus driver, with disembarking in the back. On a platform, there could be one super wide door on the left towards the center of the bus, with the fare payment done at the station.

[Karl O]

There are literally dozens of these in Salvador, Bahia Brazil. Here is one example: http://goo.gl/maps/xCrZ
Just follow the arterials and you will find many more.
They call these the required traffic operations "mao inglesa" or literraly "English-handed" driving (figuratively "English traffic flow").
I imagine there are many instances in Brazil outside of Bahia.

[Brent]

Other Ottawa examples: Terry Fox, Baseline, Orleans.

In Toronto, you might consider the bus terminal and entrance road to Downsview subway station, although I'm not sure if that's at the same scale as you are considering -- it is a monster to the extent it could be considered closer to a loop.

More Toronto, and slightly off what you're looking for: The bus entrances/exits to Lawrence station (underground bus terminal) have the buses driving on the wrong side in order to facilitate a centre platform. (There is one driveway on the north side, and one on the south side, and they loop around together so that a bus enters via an eastbound right turn and exits via a southbound right turn, and vice versa. There is no through routing east and west of Yonge.)

[Miles Bader]

Gah, that freeway interchange is a crime against humanity...

Somebody put a station in the middle of it?!

[David in Ottawa]

@Electricyvr & @Brent:

Ottawa does do this in places like Hurdman, Terry Fox and former Baseline, but all of those the platform is "off-axis" to the busway with buses in at least one direction needing to make a 90 degree turn and come to a full stop.

Ottawa does not do anything like the Brisbane example with its scissors crossover - unfortunately.

I had proposed doing something like this in the median of the Queensway at Moodie Drive where there is a central third span (which is a story unto itself) but the uncreative types in charge of designing and building Ottawa's busways were not interested. Instead, they preferred a plan to dig themselves tunnels through the Moodie A4 parclo interchange in an area with a high water table... bonus points for anyone who can guess which consultants were in charge of this one.

[Andrew]

The Minneapolis station mentioned above: http://goo.gl/maps/lSGa

Apparently it causes some issues with snow plowing operations.

[John Levin]

More information on I-35W & 46th Street Station in Minneapolis is at: http://metrotransit.org/i-35w-46th-street-transit-plan.aspx

and at http://www.metrocouncil.org/newsletter/transit2010/BRTMay10.htm

No significant issues with plowing: plows go straight through intead of crossing over, so the snow is pushed away from the platform.

The crossover has worked well for the relatively low volume of buses (8 to 10 per hour each way), but modeling suggests that at much higher bus volumes planned at other stations in the corridor(100+ per hour), the signal system required for the crossover operation would not keep up.

[Joseph E]

"Gah, that freeway interchange is a crime against humanity...
Somebody put a station in the middle of it?!"

Miles, that station is a transfer point between the Green Line light rail trains (which run east-west in the middle of the Century Freeway) and the Harbor Transitway which run in the middle of the Harbor Freeway. And yes, it is every bit as unpleasant as you might imagine.

[Erik Griswold]

The El Monte Busway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Monte_Busway

http://metrotransportationlibrary.wikispaces.com/El+Monte+Busway

...which has been gradually turned over to private cars, step by step. The final opening to SOVs will occur next year. The Busway flips over around the Cal State L.A. Metrolink train station shown in these links:

http://goo.gl/maps/pSq3

http://binged.it/LEyhvq

[Gag Halfrunt]

The Metrobüs BRT line in Istanbul has island platforms and left hand running. Wikipedia says that Metrobüs buses don't operate outside the dedicated busway, but perhaps the planners wanted the option of doing so in the future and decided not to get BRT-only buses with doors on the "wrong" side.

[Neil Davies]

The Quadrant Bus Station stop on the Swansea 'ftr' route (Wales) has this design, in order to provide a larger passenger waiting area that can deal with variations in patronage according to time of day. Can't give an aerial image link as the usual map provider hasn't updated their image yet.

[Simon]

I'm wondering what the advantage is in doing this over having platforms on both sides. Is it just for lack of space for the platforms?

[Robert del Rosario]

The future Transbay Transit Center in downtown San Francisco will have a cross-over on the entry ramp from the Bay Bridge in order to serve the island configuration bus deck platform. The TJPA and AC Transit agreed to this feature in order to prevent having an intersection at the entrance with potentially 300 buses/hr traveling through the terminal. Check out www.transbaycenter.org for more information.

[Danny Howard]

The Salvador-Bahia example is particularly noteworthy: it isn't strictly a cross-over, as the dedicated lanes just run opposite for some considerable length. I assume there is cross-over where the buses enter/leave the system ...

[Jarrett at HumanTransit.org]

Simon.  Cheaper to build one platform.  Supports better amenity and safety

[Alon Levy]

Robert: you should probably mention that the Bay Bridge has westbound traffic on one deck and eastbound traffic on the other, and so they could've just designed the ramps leading to Transbay to have left-hand driving. Instead, they programmed at-grade conflict.

[Lloyd Skaalen]

Your photo of crossovers above the freeway looks like the Spadina spaghetti exchange at Hwy 401 in north Toronto.

[Alan Howes]

More on the Minneapolis example, supplied to me by Mike Abegg -
"The second case involves a center-median freeway-level transit station, and arises from the decision to have an island platform but buses outfitted for normal curb-side operation. Buses in both directions travel in an HOT lane in the center of the freeway. When they approach the station, they must execute a crossover maneuver so that northbound buses end up between the southbound travel lanes and the island platform. The bus lanes are separated from the opposing travel lanes by j barriers. The access is controlled by gates - only vehicles equipped with the proper transmitter are able to enter the platform lanes. Under normal conditions the gates are triggered far enough in advance that buses can maintain normal freeway speeds until they reach the diverge area leading up to the gated platform lane."

[Matt Miller]

In traffic engineering, the 'crossover' is known as a 'diverging diamond'. UDOT build several over I-15, but I had never considered using them for buses.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/11/large_diverging-diamond.gif

http://blog.udot.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/DDI.jpg

[Xavier Debidour]

Here, in Lyon, France, a bus "cross-over" inside a traffic circle. The automobiles rotate counter-clockwise (normal) in the outer ring. Buses rotate clockwise (reversed) in the inner ring.

http://binged.it/KtfkuE

[paul chasan]

SF's proposed Van Ness BRT line is grappling with a presumably similar issue to the one you're trying to resolve. IE, how to run a center-median BRT system (more efficient) without requiring special busses w/ doors on the left side (operational nightmare for transit agency). The current preferred alternative takes a different approach than the ones listed above, but it's pretty clever. You can see it here:
http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/05/02/proposed-van-ness-brt-design-would-combine-the-best-of-both-options/

[Nathanael]

This crossover scheme is a low-capacity solution. Luckily (?) all the routes which use it have underperformed horribly, probably because they are freeway median buses, which suck big time already.

[Anders]

Outside Malmö Railway station in Sweden. http://goo.gl/maps/FUcS
Pros: noone needs to cross two lanes of traffic, all stops on island platform eases interchanges and makes it easier to go around and find your stop.
Cons: everyone needs to cross one lane of traffic, pedestrian crossings with left-hand driving may make pedestrians look the wrong way.

[Amitai]

The Har Hatzofim station at the southern end of the new Jerusalem LRT system has this design for buses serving the station. There are slip lanes so that northbound buses cross over and drive next to the southbound roadway, adjacent to the southbound LRT platform. They then make a U-turn to the right and pick up southbound passengers adjacent to the northbound LRT platform. The only problem with this is that most passengers are connecting NB>NB or SB>SB, so 100% of connecting passengers have to cross the tracks to reach their connection.

[Conor]

There is a central interchange point in Lindau, Bavaria, Germany (the abbreviation is "ZUP" in German, but I don't know what it stands for).

There is one central platform and buses from all four lines pass here once along their route.

https://maps.google.com/?ll=47.55609,9.692219&spn=0.001564,0.00284&hnear=Cork,+County+Cork,+Ireland&t=h&z=19

http://www.lptw.de/archiv/download/busfahrplan.pdf

[Alan Tanaman]

Here is another good example of feeder bus-LRT interchange in Jerusalem at Mt Herzl:
http://goo.gl/maps/lknL

The feeder buses drop off passengers on the left where they can board the tram to the centre of town on the same platform. The buses then swing round the back to face the camera (on the right) and pick-up passengers that have just alighted the tram.

In the picture you can see a tram that has just terminated at this station. Incidentally, work is now commencing on an extension to this line, but the majority of passengers from this stop will still be northbound.

[Amitai]

@Alan: See my above comment. You are correct; it is the Mt Herzl station, not the Har Hatzofim station. However, when the bus crosses over, the NB>NB transfer requires that a passenger cross the tracks from the west side of the station to the east side.

[Daniel Sparing]

I only know one for trams, so I am afraid that doesn't count :(
http://goo.gl/maps/0RYx
(there is also an island tram stop in Zürich)

Furthermore, Bogotá Transmilenios don't have doors on two sides--they only have doors on the left :)

[Aidan Stanger]

Tea Tree Plaza (Modbury) at the end of the Adelaide O-bahn

[Paul]

In Almere, the Netherlands at Station Centrum: http://maps.google.nl/?ll=52.374928,5.218404&spn=0.002201,0.005659&t=k&z=18

The buses that use the bus bays on the edges of the station cross over. But the station is also designed so that buses using the bays in the interior of the station do not crossover.

[Ari]

In re left-side doors, the trolleybus fleet in Boston has doors on both sides. The two most-used trolleybus lines (71 73) run through the Harvard busway, along with several other bus lines. On inbound runs, passengers board and alight at the two right-side doors. The buses then loop outside the tunnel and pick passengers up, all of whom board through the left-side door, reducing crowding and fare payment. (With the two lines combined, a full bus leaves approximately every 150 seconds at peak evening rush, so fully boarding each bus through the front door would bog down the system.) Riders then pay their fare upon exiting the bus through the front door.