Bus Ride

So, I was riding the bus into town a little early today and had a nice quiet ride. Usually the bus is packed and I have to stand the whole time. Being able to sit gave me a chance to look at the city around me and being an architecture student I was of course analyzing everything along the way. Things such as why a light is in a certain place or a driving lane is here instead of there. This made me realize what a great transit system they really have. Little things such as having the cars park on the street and putting the bike lane between the parked cars and the sidewalk make it worked much better. At the intersections there are lights for not only the cars, but for the bikes and the buses. The lights for the buses and bikes turn green a couple of seconds earlier to give them a chance to get out of the way of cars or to allow the bus to get in the left lane for a left hand turn. The lights themselves instead of turning straight from red to green they have a yellow in between, just like the yellow is in between the green and red. This I thought was great, that way cars aren't pulling out before it actually is green. I think the best thing about there transit system though is that there are buses running at a higher frequency and stopping more times along the route. You would think that this slows them down, but it actually speeds them up. I was amazed. All of this just makes it so easy to love this city and I can't wait to explore it more.