This report will be of interest to individuals and groups with a stake in the location and design of bus stops. These groups include public transportation organizations, public works departments, local departments of transportation, developers, and public and private organizations along or near bus routes. The research evaluated bus bulbs, an innovation in the design of bus stops found in several major North American cities. A bus bulb is a section of sidewalk that extends from the curb of a parking lane to the edge of a through lane. They are also known as curb extensions, nubs, and bus bulges.

Bus bulbs are a section of sidewalk that extends from the curb of a parking lane to the edge of the through lane. A major advantage of using bus bulbs is the creation of additional space at a bus stop for shelters, benches, and other bus patron improvements when the inclusion of these amenities would otherwise be limited without the additional space. The primary motivators for installing bus bulbs are to reduce congestion on sidewalks and to eliminate the bus-weaving maneuver into a busbay stop. Bus bulbs are appropriate at sites with high patron volumes along crowded city sidewalks and where parking along the curb is permitted. An evaluation of pedestrian operations found that the average amount of available space for pedestrians and transit patrons improved after the bulb had been constructed. Vehicle and bus speeds also increased on the block and in the corridor. The average delay to buses attempting to re-enter the travel stream was constant from the before to after period at the farside stop. The nearside stop, which experienced higher delays to buses, saw a reduction in the average delay with the installation of the bus bulb. This contractor final report contains Appendix B, Curbside Before-and-After Study; Appendix C, Roadway Before-and-After Study; and Appendix D, Computer Simulation.

"The Transit Street Design Guide sets a new vision for how cities can harness the immense potential of transit to create active and efficient streets in neighborhoods and downtowns alike. Building on the Urban Street Design Guide and Urban Bikeway Design Guide, the Transit Street Design Guide details how reliable public transportation depends on a commitment to transit at every level of design. Developed through a new peer network of NACTO members and transit agency partners, the Guide provides street transportation departments, transit operating agencies, leaders, and practitioners with the tools to actively prioritize transit on the street."--Site Web de NACTO.

"TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 83: Bus and Rail Transit Preferential Treatments in Mixed Traffic explores the application of different transit preferential treatments in mixed traffic. The report also examines the decision-making process that may be applied in deciding which preferential treatment might be the most applicable in a particular location."--Publisher's description.

This synthesis will be of interest to transportation planners, environmental analysts, and government officials at the federal, state, regional, and local levels. It describes the state of the practice with respect to the procedures and methodologies used by planning agencies at all levels to plan and evaluate alternative multimodal passenger transportation and to integrate these plans with related land use and environmental issues. This report of the Transportation Research Board describes the federal studies and guidelines that are available and presents the findings of an extensive survey of state, regional, and local agencies to identify the evaluation methods that are being used in the practice. Selected case studies for five types of modal evaluation are presented: intercity corridor, regional study, regional screening, urban corridor, and regional programming.