Bus lanes don't get no respect

Spotted this sign while wandering around town this past weekend. Essex Street is normally configured as two general vehicle lanes and one dedicated bus lane for the Silver Line. However, construction on a building is occupying one of the lanes here. Under any other circumstance, the likely response would be to simply reduce general vehicle travel to one lane. But in this case, the supposedly "dedicated" bus lane here gets treated like extra space for any motorist to use. A nearby sign indicates that construction is expected to last until "Dec 2012 / Dec 2013" whatever that means.

It's bad enough that people drive into the bus lanes on a regular basis. Now that it's officially sanctioned, they'll even have an excuse. Things like this are why we can't trust transportation planners bearing "Bus Rapid Transit."