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Transit Street Design Guide Index

Transit Street Design Guide
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Bus Pads

Bus Pads

Bus pads are highly durable areas of the roadway surface at bus stops, usually constructed in concrete, addressing the common issue of asphalt distortion at bus stops.

Conventional asphalt pavement is flexible, and can be moved by the force and heat generated by braking buses and trucks, leading to wave-shaped hills or hummocks along the length of a bus stop. This issue is pronounced at high-volume stops where dwelling buses further heat the roadway surface, as well as near-side stops in mixed-traffic lanes where trucks may be adding to wear.

APPLICATION

At bus stops, especially at high-volume stops where asphalt pavement deforms under the weight of buses.

CRITICAL

Pavement at bus stops must be kept smooth at crosswalks to maintain accessibility.

Along bus stops with through bicycle traffic, such as in-lane stops, smooth pavement must be provided.

RECOMMENDED

Bus pads should be at least 8.5 feet wide to accommodate both wheels of a bus, but should be wider at locations without precision loading, to provide a consistent surface when the bus does not pull fully to the curb.

At in-lane stops, the bus pad should extend across the full width of the lane, and end on the lane line.

At pull-out stops where the bus crosses a bike lane, the concrete bus pad should end at either the right edge of the bike lane or the left edge of the bike lane (including its full width), to prevent the creation of a longitudinal seam within the bike lane. Where bikes pass stopped buses, as on shared bus-bike lanes, bus pads should be provided across the full width of the lane to provide a level surface to both buses and bikes.

At curbside pull-out stops, bus pads should be provided for the full length of the clear curb zone, ending before reaching the crosswalk.

At in-lane stops, bus pad length should be determined based on the length of the full bus zone. The ideal length of a comparable pull-out stop (with the same bus vehicle length and number of berths) can be used to determine the length of the bus pad.

Bus pads should end before the crosswalk to prevent lateral or longitudinal pavement seams in the crosswalk. If a bus pad must be extended into the crosswalk, it should extend across the full width of the crosswalk to prevent wheelchairs from encountering seams between concrete and asphalt.

References