Sunnyvale City Council Votes to Support 'Fuck You BRT Buses You're Stuck in Traffic With us' Plan

"Think we're going to make your bus trip any faster by dedicating lanes?  Screw that. You're going to be miserable with us."
Photo: Andrew Boone

Most people will agree that El Camino Real is a REAL traffic nightmare (see what I did there?!)  City council members listened to a plan to convert 2 of the 8 lanes dedicated to moving or parking cars to actually moving large groups of people.  They were then told that the Bus Rapid Transit plan could cut transit rider's trips nearly in half along the length of El Camino Real and encourage more drivers to get off the roads.  Council member's jaws dropped at the thought of such a wacky and outlandish plan to fix congestion by seeking alternate modes of transport. When someone suggested that self-driving robot cars would fix the congestion issues at some point in the future squeals of delighted and high-fives soon followed.

All 8 lanes are needed to move and store cars.  Sorry everyone else, traffic means that traffic has to stay!

A few council members said that they shouldn't invest in a proven transit solution because self-driving cars at some point in time are going to make it irrelevant.   Instead of dedicated bus lanes, the council voted 4-3 to have “mixed flow” lanes along a corridor that would include "improved bulbout” bus stops. "This way the buses can stop at these bulbouts enrage drivers behind them who have to stop, and then when the bus leaves the bulbout they're fucked in traffic with the rest of us." said one grinning city council member.

Give up 1 lane of traffic each way for thousands of other people?  Uhhh... yeah I don't think so.  We'll wait for robot cars kthxbye.
image found here.

Despite the fact that over 30 percent of all trips within a mile of their destination are taken by car, the council voted to pass a standing resolution, "1.3 Subsection F - U: Bike & Ped Upgrades" to keep sidewalks narrow and have bikers "duke it out between moving and parked cars like the rest of us motorists."  This would also ensure that no one get the dumb idea to actually walk or bike along the stroad and stick to trusty motorist transit until the robots arrive.

Part of the plan is to extend "mixing zones" to bikers in the form of uneven pavement between parked cars, right turn lanes, and swift moving cars.
images courtesy: Janet Lafleur - http://ladyfleur.bike

Shelby Winters understands the issue all too well as she commutes back and forth by car each day and loses more than 10 hours a week stuck in traffic. "Oh god it's always a nightmare with the crashes", she exclaimed, "the stop and go traffic is just soul crushing.  I just wish they could do something about this without changing anything that in any way impedes my ability to use every lane on El Camino Real".

After the meeting was over, the city council gleefully drove their cars into traffic, knowing that they probably solved a problem with robot cars in the not-so-but-might-be-distant future.

Robot cars will eventually fix this traffic problem.
original picture by Andrew Boone