Skip to Content
Streetsblog USA home
Streetsblog USA home
Log In
Buses

Snapping Together a Better Bus Stop

Oakland built a bus stop platform on Telegraph Avenue using modular plastic components. Photo: TransitCenter

Bus bulbs and their cousin, the bus island, speed up transit service by positioning the boarding area right next to the travel lane. Buses don't have to pull in and out of traffic, which saves 5 to 20 seconds per stop, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials. That can add up to significant time savings over a whole route.

Some cities aren't waiting to build out bus bulbs in concrete. To get these improvements done faster, they're using inexpensive snap-in-place plastic platforms made by the Spanish company Zicla.

New York, Pittsburgh, and now Oakland have all experimented with the Zicla product as a way to accelerate implementation of bus bulbs.

In Oakland, the city added the bus islands along the protected bike lane on Telegraph Avenue to reduce conflicts between cyclists and buses. Without the bus island, cyclists would have to weave around buses during the boarding process.

Instead of spending days or weeks to dig up the street and pour concrete, the modular bus islands take hours to install. "It’s just radically cheaper, you can put it down in a day," said TransitCenter's Jon Orcutt. "The unit that you see in the picture from Oakland is about $20,000."

The Zicla product is ADA-compliant, with a low rise where the bulb meets the sidewalk. As you can see, for the bus island version on Telegraph Avenue, the bulb connects to the sidewalk with a walkway that cyclists ride over via short ramps.

Oakland officials are evaluating the plastic bus islands on Telegraph with an eye toward more widespread implementation "because they’re cheaper and faster to install than concrete," according to a post by the city on Medium.

Pittsburgh is also using the Zicla product to speed up bus service on Liberty Avenue, a downtown street where a number of bus routes converge. The platforms are part of an 18-month pilot project.

pittsburgh bus bulb
Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh. Photo: Zicla
Liberty Avenue Pittsburgh. Photo: Zicla

New York City uses them on Utica Avenue in Brooklyn. After the platforms successfully weathered the winter, the city elected to leave them in place past the trial period, Orcutt says.

Photo: TransitCenter
Utica Avenue. Photo: TransitCenter
Photo: TransitCenter

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog USA

Trump’s Transportation ‘Funding Freeze’ Was Just the Tip of the Iceberg, GAO Says

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was slow to get money out the door even before the current president threw the process into chaos. This must change.

August 4, 2025

Monday’s Headlines Hit the Beach

North America needs more coastal bikeways like those in European beach towns, David Zipper writes in CityLab.

August 4, 2025

Bus Rapid Transit Can Work … If Cities Follow the Formula

It sure beats the current method of guessing or simply basing the route on how strongly a given neighborhood opposes or supports it.

August 1, 2025

Friday Video: We’re All Paying For ‘Free’ Parking, Whether Or Not We Drive

Parking mandates aren't the only reason why your city has so much asphalt. Check out the hidden reason why so many businesses build way more parking than they need.

August 1, 2025

Friday’s Headlines Take It Back

Apparently transportation can be too "woke." Plus, only cities can save us from climate change now, and more headlines.

August 1, 2025

Opinion: Ohio is the Poster Child for Why We Need a Stronger Federal Approach to Passenger Rail

Ohio's reluctance to build new passenger rail has made them a bottleneck in the national network, and an emblem of bigger national problem.

August 1, 2025
See all posts