| PROJECT NAME: | Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) improvement project |
| CITY: | Grand Rapids, Michigan |
| LOCATION: | Fulton Street |
| OPENING DATE: | November 2019 |
The city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the second-largest city in the state and the largest city in West Michigan. It is also the economic capital of this region of Michigan. The intense economic activity brings traffic congestion to the heart of the city, which is a risk for the optimum operation of public transport.
As a response, in 2019 the city decided to test a new way to build bus stops to speed up the transit service, minimize traffic congestion and improve the street space for everybody.
Need and project objectives.
The city of Grand Rapids launched an ambitious BRT in 2017. Typically, a BRT system includes roadways that are dedicated to buses and gives priority to buses at intersections where they interact with other traffic, alongside design features like bus platforms to reduce delays caused by passengers boarding or leaving buses.
After the implementation, in 2019 the goal of Grand Rapids was to reduce the time lost when buses pulled over to the curb and when they merged back to the traffic. Officials calculated that time savings could vary from 5 to 20 seconds per stop, which would help buses move faster and more reliably.
Time saving was especially important because this location is one of the busiest stops in the city’s rapid transit network and is immediately adjacent to one of the busiest traffic intersections downtown.
The proposed solution.
City officials believed that it was necessary to build an extended curb to create a bus platform that would speed up bus transit by preventing buses from pulling over and merging back to the traffic. However, there was a great time constraint because of the high priority given to the improvement project. The decision was therefore to choose a modular and quick-build solution like Vectorial® system.
The temporary bus platform built with the Vectorial® system extends the curb into the street and enables rapid buses to pick up and drop off without ever leaving the travel lane.
The bus platform installed is 8’ wide and 40’ long.
