Third Activation of 2023, 19th Overall
NYCDOT to Issue Warning Notices to Violators for First 60 Days of Implementatio
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) today announced the activationof automated bus lane enforcement (ABLE) cameras on the Q58 bus ir Queens, the second busiest bus route in the city last year. ABLE cameras capture
Drivers
Comment by Russ Johnson:
One way to deal with this problem would be to install tracks and run streetcars. Then there would be no question of where parking is absolutely not practical or permitted. As the way it was done in earlier times by people who understood the business. (now pretty much extinct in this part of the planet) See attached.
But Russ is forgetting that one of the disastrous problems with tracked streetcars was… that any blockage, even slight, held the cars up completely until wholly remediated – and that any cars following could not proceed either. Perhaps he is suggesting that we pass ‘don’t block the box’ legislation for streetcar lanes and then install massive penalty plows or claws to clear the routes ‘with extreme prejudice’ should any violation be observed. (In typical New York tradition, with fines and charges billed to whoever they can manage…)
The point of the ABLE cameras is that they detect obstruction precisely at the point and time it matters: when a camera-equipped bus is actually blocked or impeded. Use of cameras just to keep anyone out of the lane even for a moment all the time – which used to be the way the bus lanes were enforced – is pretty transparently a fee grab rather than traffic enhancement.
Just get a front end loader, tip the offending car out of the way on its roof and leave it there. A few of those and the problem will be solved.
Actually, the Russians have a better answer – a straight truck with a hydraulic grab crane. Drives alongside, drops the curved grab through the roof, picks the car up and dumps it in the back, and carries on.
In this country we’d probably check for children in the back first. [A]
I like it. Would you sell franchises?
I know someone in Boise who has all the blueprints and IP for swap-body production. We can easily tool to make these for various chassis combinations, so that they can be used for rental or lease and then with a simple no-tools conversion used for other ‘desirable social purposes’. White multiple-door units with three-level shackle attach points for FEMA. Need I say too much more?