Bus Line Redesign will include efforts to implement PRT's Bus Stop and Street Design Guidelines leading to more accessible and better located stops.
What is Bus Stop Balancing?
Transit agencies use the term "bus stop balancing" to refer to efforts to ensure that bus stops are located where there is high ridership demand and with spacing that allows buses to travel efficiently as opposed to stopping every few blocks. The result is more effective service for the rider and a more efficient system for the agency to operate.
What is PRT proposing to do?
In 2019, PRT published its first Bus Stop and Street Design Guidelines, which covered the spacing and location of bus stops, provision of amenities at those stops, and the design of the stops and surrounding pedestrian infrastructure.
Bus Line Redesign will weave in “bus stop balancing” to ensure the network better aligns with its guidelines. This will help to promote efficiency and improve travel time and on-time performance.
For every new route and segment, bus stops will adhere to PRT's Bus Stop and Street Design Guidelines.
For existing routes, stops will be proposed for balancing when changes to the network are implemented based on the final Bus Line Redesign plan. Implementation is expected to occur in multiple phases over the next four years.
Many of our routes today have numerous bus stops, spaced closer than they should be, to provide efficient service based on the standards, but significant analysis and public engagement will be needed to identify optimal stops.
The future analysis is expected to include the following considerations:
- Existing sidewalk conditions, topography, and other physical conditions
- ADA accessibility
- Title VI and equity impacts
- Ridership
- Transfer potential
- Previous investment of transit amenities
- Adjacency to vulnerable users
Through this process, PRT will also seek to add more transit amenities to stops such as shelters and benches.
