Buses, The Lincoln Tunnel, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal

and what this means for bus and rail services elsewhere in the world

Introduction

This chapter deals with the Lincoln Tunnel and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The Lincoln Tunnel is famous for its bus lane, which enables a large number of buses to travel along one lane, with a corresponding high rate of passenger movement, similar to the peak capacity of rail services. The thought has occurred to some commentators, for example Transport Watch, that rail systems could be replaced by dedicated bus lanes for buses, and they put forward the Lincoln Tunnel and the attached Port Authority Bus Rerminal as evidence. (In the example given above, it is erroenously referred to as the 'New York Bus terminal').

Leaving aside the question of whether or not buses can replace rail services, on the same route, or via another route, it is important to understand how the Lincoln Tunnel works. Then the validity of buses as a rail replacement, full or partial, can be better considered.

Location of the Lincoln Tunnel

Manhattan, New York City, and the state of New Jersey face each other across the Hudson River, on the eastern coast of the USA. The location of these places is shown in Figure 1.


Figure 1: Location of Manhattan, New York, Hudson River, and New Jersey

The Lincoln Tunnel connects Manhattan to New Jersey directly, providing a high capacity road access. The Lincoln Tunnel is in fact three tunnels, which are accessed together on either side of the Hudson. Originally, the Lincoln Tunnel consisted of one, underused, tunnel, and the additional two tunnels were added later to meet increased demand. Figure 2 shows the location of the Lincoln Tunnel. Both ends of the tunnel are connected to the existing highway network via complex access ramps - in particular, the access loop road on the New Jersey end turns though 360 degrees.


Figure 2: Location of the Lincoln Tunnel

Access details

Figures 3 and 4 show the access details at either end of the bridge. The full complexity of the access routes becomes particularly apparent. The New Jersey end of the tunnel also has a toll plaza, controlling access to the tunnel. The standard toll for cars is currently $6.


Figure 3: Access facilities, New Jersey end


Figure 4: Access facilities, Manhattan end

Tunnel Management

Each tunnel has two road lanes running through it, and the Lincoln Tunnel is three separate tunnels joined together. The two northern lanes are always westbound, from Manhattan to New Jersey. The two southern lanes are always eastbound, from New Jersey to Manhattan. The centre two lanes can be switched between eastbound and westbound so as to best match the traffic demand.

A bus lane has been provided in the centre tunnel. Between 6:15 am and 10:00 am the northernmost of the two centre lanes is set to eastbound for buses only. This permits efficient access to Manhattan by bus. The bus lane is called XBL, which stands for 'Exclusive Bus Lane'. This bus lane accomodates approximately 1,700 buses and 62,000 commuters over the 4 hour period that the XBL is in operation. Most of these buses are destined for the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

This lane arrangement is shown in Figure 5.


Figure 5: Lane layout within the Lincoln Tunnel

In practice the lanes are allocated as shown in Figure 6 (Source: Port Authority). The slides shown the lane allocation at the New Jersey end of the tunnel. The last slide of the sequence shows the cross-section in the morning period, with the XBL lane running in towards Manhattan.


Figure 6: Slide sequence showing AM, Mid and PM peak lane arrangements, and the XBL lane in the AM peak

Port Authority Bus Terminal

The Lincoln Tunnel connects directly via ramps with the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Figure 7 shows the location of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, between 8th and 9th Avenues, and 40th and 42nd West Streets. The access ramp network, which links the bus terminal to the surrounding streets and the Lincoln Tunnel can be clearly seen.


Figure 7: Location of the Port Authority Bus Terminal

The top three levels of the bus terminal are set aside for parking. This parking facility has space for over 1000 cars.

Underneath the car parking facility is the terminal building. This has 168 bus gates, labelled non-consecutively as follows:

Conclusions

The Lincoln Tunnel provides a dedicated bus lane, in the direction from New Jersey to Manhattan, during the morning peak hours of 06:10 am to 10:00 am. During these four hours, the typical flow is 1700 buses, each carrying on average 36 passengers. Most of these buses are travelling towards the Port Authority Bus Terminal, which has 168 gates, or roughly one gates for every ten buses over the four hours that the XBL is in operation. It is the large number of gates in the bus terminal which makes the XBL work effectively. Without these gates, it would be impossible to get more than a few buses in through the tunnel, as they would have nowhere to stop. This is why the average bus route in the UK has only, at most, a dozen buses per hour, since there is only one bus area at each bus stop.

This means that it is only appropriate to use the Lincoln Tunnel as an example of how many buses can be routed along a road if there are sufficient supporting bus gates at the end of the journey.

It is worth noting that the total cost of the bus terminal to December 2003 was $500 million. During the time of operation to that date (December 1950 to December 2003), over 3 billion passengers have travelled through it. So, a significant investment, but because traffic levels justify it, a cost-effective facility.