Much of the resistance to transit lanes comes from how they appear to motorists. If you are sitting in stopped traffic and a transit lane is right next to you, the transit lane will look empty most of the time. Now and then a bus will flash past, but if you're sitting still and the bus is going at full speed, you'll mostly be gazing at empty pavement.
Motorists who see that often decide that the bus lane isn't working. Surely, if it were working right, you'd see buses in it most of the time, wouldn't you? Wrong. Fast-moving buses are a quick blur to the stopped motorist. Only a blocked or failing bus lane appears to be full of buses [...]
In most cities, the motorist's perception is so dominant that their confusions can become political imperatives. Wherever transit lanes operate, elected officials get angry letters about how empty they are, as though this implies that they are wasting space. Planning studies for transit lanes sometimes refer to "empty lane syndrome," as though this common fallacy in the motorist's perception is an objective technical problem. It is certainly a political problem, but it's one rooted in ignorance, and only information will combat it.
- Jarrett Walker, Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking About Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives, Washington DC, 2012, p.206-7.
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