Next Steps for a Bus Lane on the Bay Bridge

ByRoger Rudick - Feb 12, 2020

At today’s meeting of the Bay Area Toll Authority Oversight Committee (BATA) of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), which makes decisions about the Oakland Bay Bridge, for the commissioners it wasn’t a question of whether to put bus-only lanes on the bridge and its approaches–it was how to get it done.

However, their staff seemed to see things differently.

“If we closed a lane on the bridge to traffic today, we would make the problem worse,” said Andrew Fremier, MTC’s Deputy Executive Director for Operations, in a presentation to the commission. “The Bay Bridge itself is not where the significant delays are…it’s the approaches where you see the problems.”

He pointed out that in 1962, when a bi-directional bus lane was piloted, it “…did well and increased ridership and saved time, but Bay Area was a very different place today.” The population has doubled, he explained, and the bridge and its approaches are significantly reconfigured.

For the full article click here