In London there are special lanes for buses. There are fines for using them at certain times of the day if you are in a private vehicle (there are fixed cameras, and cameras in the busses too). Cyclists are free to use them

Pics: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=london+bus+lanes&source=ln...:

Inner city Bus lanes should naturally double as bicycle lanes, as they are in Paris.

Have you used them? Bicycles and buses aren't a great combination. Passing and being passed is not so pleasant. I think bus/bike lanes were put together for lack of space, and not because it's a natiral or fabulous solution.

It's ok if the bus lanes are mostly travel lanes (ok, not great, there's a pretty strong speed mismatch between bus speed and casual cyclist), but it falls down when it's an area with lots of stops. It can be wall to wall busses in some places in Dublin (quays) where many bus lines meet and there are literally continuous stops for several blocks.

Won't those be empty 99% of the time? Sounds wasteful.

You may have missed the recent article that made the front page about buses. But the idea is, if you put them in dedicated center lanes, provide civilian walk paths over the street, and give them priority over other vehicle traffic, then people treat them more like subways. Several cities in Latin America do this, the one I'm familiar with and used was TransMilenio in Bogota.

Of course, at this point, you might as well use streetcars. But I think buses are still cheaper at that point.

I did miss the article! Do you happen to have a link? Search for "buses" finds two articles from the past month, but I don't see the reference to that idea.

EDIT: Nevermind, this is it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17034100

It’s also easier to change a bus route than a streetcar route

No more wasteful than the passenger cars which clog the roads and are only 17-25% occupied.

No argument there, but "no more wasteful than [very wasteful thing]" is not great :)

I'm just wondering if a better use of the street could be achieved; that doesn't have to mean cars. What about a bus + moped lane? Electric mopeds seem like a pretty good alternative for people who need something faster than a scooter, and having ridden a bicycle in Amsterdam, where mopeds could use the bicycle lane, I can tell you they don't belong there!

Yes, Switzerland where everything is small doesn't often have space for separate bus lanes.

They use a trick: where the bus lane merges they have a traffic light. Cars have to wait for the bus -- literally -- and are only allowed to merge behind the bus. When the bus stops there are street baffles preventing the cars overtaking the bus. This way the bus has a free lane ahead. And the cars would have needed to wait in the traffic jam anyway, so why not let them wait intelligently behind buses?

Empty 99% of the time - no, they are generally used in busy areas of larger cities where multiple bus-lines overlap (at least that goes for Copenhagen)

They can also be used by taxis and other utility vehicles (e.g. the police) like here in Germany, but yes - it's a bit wasteful. This is why they only build them where there's space.