Eyes on the Street: Wilshire’s Car-Only Bus Lane

From Twitter user Will Clark comes this tweet, noting the shockingly lax enforcement of the Wilshire bus-only lane by the City of Los Angeles. Clark notes,

I really don’t understand the point of dedicated bus lanes when they look like [this] on Wilshire in Westwood headed to the 405. Like, in 10 min the 720 across the street made it thru 1 light.

Clark is, of course, completely correct. There is little point in bus-only lanes existing without enforcement. Given the added importance of Wilshire, as host to one of the busiest transit lines in the country, the crowded bus-only lane is more than an inconvenience. It’s an embarrassment.

Sadly, this is not a weird fluke or one-time problem. Drivers have consistently hogged the lanes since they first launched a few years ago. Late last month, in a story on Metro’s strategic plan, Streetsblog editor Joe Linton called enforcement “pathetic.”

The good news is that Metro has enforcement as a high priority in its strategic plan. The bad news is that it has already taken far too long for the plan to move off paper and onto the street.