https://academic-accelerator.com/encyclopedia/transit-mall
https://talkofthecities.iclei.org/cities-in-action-south-koreas-first-ever-transit-mall
https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/transit_mall_case_studies_sanfran.pdf
Transit_malls are suppose to be efficient, high volume transportation corridors.
However, the Granville_Mall,_in_Vancouver, Canada seems to be a poor example.
Downtown Granville_Street used to have 6 lanes and there used to be streetcars on it until the 1950s. Indeed, that part of Granville_Street was a nice wide transportation & entertainment corridor. However, by the early 1970s, just as the downtown was starting to go through a new phase of growth, there was a plan to funnel everything into just 2 lanes on some key blocks.
A 4 lane scenario would have been a much better transit option, but this is Vancouver, a city that excels in congestive planning. Vancouver might have gotten the idea of having a 2 lane transit mall from Minneapolis.
Back in the day, there just wasn't any reason to have Nicollet_Avenue to be as wide as Canal_Street,_New_Orleans or Market_Street_(San_Francisco).
However, the Nicollet_Mall should have had 2 passing lanes, instead of cramming things into only two lanes. Thus, whenever a bus breaks down or there is some emergency, half of the Nicollet_Mall can easily get blocked up.
Fortunately, Portland,_Oregon decided not to follow the Minneapolis and Vancouver, BC examples. MAX_and_bus_side-by-side_on_Portland_Mall, this is so much better than funneling everything into just 2 lanes. The Portland_Transit_Mall remains as one of the best transit corridor examples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Transit_Mall#Renovation_and_rebuilding
Again, Granville_Street in downtown Vancouver used to be 6 lanes wide. While the initial concept of the Granville_Mall was a good idea, but forcing everything into only 2 lanes just became another quintessential Vancouver example of bottleneck & congestive planning. It's all part of the narrow-minded BC mentality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granville_Mall,_Vancouver Of course right at some crucial blocks, the 2 lane segments provide great spots for congestion, all by design. Whenever a bus breaks down or there is some emergency, there isn't any passing lane. Thus, one side of the street remains blocked until the bus can be towed away. Of course it was considered to be a wise decision to have so many bus routes funneled through such a narrow transit corridor & then remain stubborn about ever improving the situation.
Reducing the downtown section of Granville_Street from 6 lanes to 4 would have allowed passing lanes for busses & the sidewalks could have still been widened. Plus, it would have been so much easier for emergency vehicles to get through as well. Unfortunately, Greater-Vancouver is all about creating congestion & inefficiency.
If one side of the street has a bus breakdown & the other side has some emergency requiring a bus to remain parked, there isn't an extra couple of lanes for emergency vehicles to pass on some blocks of Granville_Street. Apparently, it was deemed essential & appropriate to have such a bottleneck on what is suppose to be an efficient, high volume bus corridor.
Of course Vancouver was one of the first cities to get rid of its streetcars or trams. It will likely be one of the last cities to ever bring them back. Fortunately, the Vancouver mentality was unable to stop Seattle & Portland from reinstating some of their streetcar routes.
A comparative study of central city station catchments in Toronto, San Francisco, and Melbourne - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096669232100209X All 3 of these big & dynamic cities never went the way of backwater Vancouver.
Greater Vancouver should be able to have a fast-bus network as good & extensive as what's in Curitiba, Brazil someday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curitiba#Transportation
Ideally, any city should have at least one passing lane on a bus corridor. Of course there can also be more crossover sections to enable trams & streetcars to pass temporarily obstructed areas.
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