Marin planners are preparing to study whether to use the southbound Highway 101 shoulder between Novato and San Rafael for buses when traffic slows to a crawl.
The $350,000 study led by the Transportation Authority of Marin, or TAM, will look at the costs, benefits and hurdles of creating the potentially exclusive 12-mile long bus lane along one of the county’s more traffic-prone stretches of highway.
Given the pandemic’s effect of dramatically reducing transit ridership and traffic on Highway 101, the study is using pre-pandemic data. But it could also provide other insights into how transit commutes could rebound, especially if bus trips to San Francisco can become speedier than solo commutes, officials said.
“This is the most heavily used transit line in the county,” said Derek McGill, TAM planning manager. “We think this study might support transit recovery efforts post-COVID-19 as well.”
The study will consider allowing Golden Gate Transit and Marin Transit buses to use the southbound highway shoulder only between Atherton Avenue in Novato and Mission Avenue in San Rafael when traffic slows below 35 mph. The buses would only be allowed to travel 35 mph, McGill said.
“It’s not like the bus would be going 65 mph next to parked cars in traffic,” McGill said.
The study is expected to be completed in the summer, with a vote by the TAM board soon after.
The idea for the bus lane, known as a bus bypass lane, dates back to 2010 as a potential feature for the Highway 101 project to widen the Marin-Sonoma Narrows, McGill said.
The idea resurfaced again when the Federal Highway Administration released guidance in 2017 on using highway shoulders as temporary lanes for buses. Caltrans identified the Highway 101 corridor in Marin as a potential candidate to test the idea.
“Bus-on-shoulder is a proven concept to improve transit reliability and speed according to recent Federal Highway Administration guidance and the study will be used to assess the feasibility of a pilot project on US-101 as part of a system of enhancements planned for the corridor,” Caltrans representative Chiconda Davis wrote in an email.
Most of the funding for the study will come from a $308,000 Caltrans grant from state gas tax funding. The grant requires TAM to provide matching funds, which will bring the study’s cost up to about $350,000, McGill said.
When the project was being considered in the past, officials from the California Highway Patrol and the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District raised concerns about the proposal, including the shoulder narrowing to 10 feet in some areas and the potential for buses to damage drainage structures. Other concerns included vehicles weaving on and off the highway at ramps and disabled vehicles parked on shoulders.
Planning officials at the bridge district declined to comment, stating it was premature. CHP officials could not be reached for comment.
The study will incorporate input from a committee of officials from the Golden Gate Bridge district, Marin Transit, Caltrans, Novato, San Rafael, Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit and the CHP, McGill said.
A bus bypass lane farther south than Mission Street will not be addressed in the study because the shoulder becomes too narrow or disappears entirely, McGill said. By comparison, the shoulder between Novato and San Rafael already includes bus stops and has a wider shoulder.
“We think that this might be a cost-effective way to provide transit priority in the corridor without the need for a big capital expenditure or widening the highway,” McGill said.
TAM is asking the public to weigh in on the idea by emailing info@tam.ca.gov or completing a survey at tinyurl.com/PTTLsurvey by Nov. 20.
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November 16, 2020 at 05:39AM
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Marin study to examine Highway 101 shoulders as bus lanes - Marin Independent Journal
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