Sydney’s 24 Hour Bus Lanes – A Very Bad Joke

In Sydney, we have some very quaint customs.

For instance, as a part of our roadways (I refuse to use the term road system) we have what are called “bus lanes”.

The concept is that these are traffic lanes on the roadways that have been set aside to enable buses to operate more efficiently. The theory is that they should be able to use these lanes and gain access to an unimpeded traffic lane, and thus stick to their allotted timetables.

That’s all well and good.

Except that we have, in many areas, bus lanes that operate for 24 hours a day, every day.

Yet the bus services that might take advantage of those bus lanes don’t operate on a 24 hour hour schedule. If we look at, for instance, the Sydney Eastern Suburbs 389 route, we would see that for much of the day, the buses only run at ten minute intervals.

That’s just six buses in an hour, but the buses also don’t run even a 24 hour service for those six buses every hour!

Yet traffic is forced to abide by this stupid assignment of the lanes for the exclusive use of these non-existent buses.

Will somebody from the new NSW State Government please take a look at this stupid situation, and fix the problem?