Reading through the 1.1 billion-a-year transportation plan, I was struck how little mention there is of buses. Bus ridership accounts for 30% of trips on the MBTA, yet the only funds allocated are to speed up plans to replace the current fleet. No mention of creating dedicated bus lanes. How about creating temporary bus lanes by eliminating parking during rush hour on more congested streets? This is already done on some streets downtown, Arlington Street for example, but any vehicle can travel in it. A lane dedicated to buses would help address one of the biggest reasons for poor bus service: the bus is sitting in traffic.
Lots of attention gets paid to bicycle lanes and making it easier to commute on two wheels. The topic lights up blogs and the comments sections of newspapers. But this very heavily used form of transit gets relatively little attention.