General Road and Highway Discussion

[Markster]

Can I ask *why* it's a bus-only lane? What reason am I missing that this was designed as such? Who is it helping?

The reason is:

Once the LRT starts running, the regular cycle of Erb/Caroline will be interrupted frequently.
Left turning vehicles would end up backing up on Caroline due to insufficient green time. This will lead to gridlock for other traffic on Caroline.
Therefore all left-turning traffic should be moved over to Father David Bauer, where it will not be impacted by LRT movements.
The bus is the sole exception, so it can continue to serve Uptown well. (And leave open the possibility of routing the bus on Willis Way)

Of course, without the LRT signal phase happening every 4 minutes, there's (usually) plenty of times for cars to make it through the intersection, so it all seems a bit pointless.