Memo: Preferred Consultation and Design Approach for Bus Stops Adjacent to Cycling Infrastructure

This memo provides guidance for practitioners emphasizing the preferred approach to determining the appropriate design for bus stops adjacent to cycling infrastructure.

In April 2024, TransLink and the BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit (MoTT), published the Design Guide for Bus Stops Adjacent to Cycling Infrastructure: 

• Design Guide for Bus Stops Adjacent to Cycling Infrastructure (PDF)
• Design Guide for Bus Stops Adjacent to Cycling Infrastructure (Word)

This document was developed with the CNIB Access Labs to ensure usability by adaptive technology and compliance with global accessibility standards.

This document provides a comprehensive set of guidelines offering solutions for the planning, design, operation, and maintenance of bus stops adjacent to protected cycling infrastructure. Included is a range of contexts and applications throughout British Columbia along with guidance for education and engagement for new infrastructure as well as retrofits. The framework and the treatments identified increase safety for all users by encouraging appropriate speeds and behaviour around these types of bus stops.

The focus is to improve safe active transportation for every person regardless of their needs and abilities following the principle of Comfortable for Most, also known as All Ages and Abilities (AAA). It also recognizes the wide variety of contexts across British Columbia from large urban centres which may have high levels of walking, rolling, cycling, and transit use to smaller and rural communities which may have longer distances and rely on different modes of transportation.

Engagement

Engaging with local community residents and stakeholders on the planning and design of island platform bus stops is a critical component to ensuring the stops work for all members of the community. This should be conducted early in the planning process and include robust and meaningful engagement with the accessibility community, including people with sight loss. It is essential that the engagement is intentional and effective at gathering input and is integrated into the final design. Engagement should include:

• Work with local accessibility advisory committees, including people with sight loss, to obtain their input regarding bus stops adjacent to cycling infrastructure within the context of the design guidelines.
• Developing a stakeholder list and engaging with a broad range of stakeholders, including people who cycle and people with a range of abilities, during the planning and design process.
• Partnerships established with organizations in your community that represent people with disabilities.
• Site visits conducted with people with a range of abilities at existing bus stops adjacent to cycling infrastructure to explore retrofit opportunities.
• Partnerships with Orientation and Mobility Specialists to provide training and help people with sight loss to become familiar with island platform bus stops.

The Design Guide includes planning guidance for consideration by local governments that either eliminates or minimizes the potential for conflict between transit users and people cycling before considering adding an island platform bus stop.

Planning guidelines

Understanding the context:

• What is the primary role and user priority for the corridor within the broader transportation network? Has the role and modal priorities of the project corridor as part of the broader transportation network context been reviewed and assessed?
• What is the land use context? Is the land in an urban, suburban, or rural context?
• What is the user context? How many users of various types are using the project corridor?

Eliminate the conflict between people cycling and people accessing transit:

• Can the bikeway and transit route be accommodated on different corridors?
• Can the bikeway be provided exclusively on the left side of a one-way street?
• Can the bikeway be accommodated on a different corridor with fewer steep slopes?

Minimize the conflict between people cycling and people accessing transit:

• Can road space be reallocated?
• Can a bus stop be provided at or adjacent to a signalized intersection?
• Can a bus stop be removed, relocated, or consolidated while still achieving the same level of transit service?
• Can unidirectional bikeways be provided instead of bi-directional?
• Can separation between people cycling and transit riders be achieved?

These guidelines encourage solutions that avoid the use of island platform bus stops altogether. If that is not possible, then the preferred configuration is the signalized-integrated island platform bus stop, adjacent to a unidirectional bikeway (Figure 44 of the Design Guide). Other configurations should only be considered under specific circumstances and if the previous suggestions are not possible.

Some of the recommendations to increase safety and access include (for a full list, please refer to the Design Guide):

• Tactile Directional Indicator Mats located on the pavement at the bus entrance
• Enhanced signage with braille and raised tactile letters provided on bus stop ID poles, indicating that the transit user must cross a bike lane
• Marked pedestrian crossings in line with bus stop ID pole and doors of bus
• Treatments to slow cyclists such as narrowing, raising, channelizing, or curving the bike lane
• Cane-detectable edge treatments along the bicycle path
• Visual and tactile contrast between sidewalk, bike lane, and island platform bus stop
• Accessible Pedestrian Signals for bus stops located at signalized intersections

The Design Guide recognizes the need to develop a wider suite of options that will let a person with sight loss know with certainty that a person cycling is approaching or has stopped. While this Design Guide is a first step, more research continues, including recommendations underscoring that transportation practitioners and people with a range of abilities should continue to work together to better understand the tools and technologies that may have the potential to address issues. 

Summary

After consideration of the stakeholder feedback received throughout the development of the Design Guide and following its publication, we recommend that until new tools and technologies are available to better address the crossing safety concerns for mid-block island platform bus stops, close attention and consideration is given to the full framework of options contained in the Design Guide, including the elimination and minimization of conflict.

We strongly encourage local governments to work with their local accessibility advisory committees, including people who are blind, and obtain their input throughout the planning and design process regarding bus stops adjacent to cycling infrastructure within the context of the Design Guide.