Bus-Only Lanes to Be Abolished Saturdays
By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
Seoul metropolitan government said Sunday that it is considering opening bus-only lanes to other vehicles on Saturdays as early as July after more companies adopt the five-day workweek system.
``Companies that have more than 50 employees must operate the five-day system from July. Accordingly Saturday will see fewer people using cars to commute,’’ an official from the city government said.
``We are also considering allowing cars on all of some bus-only lanes,’’ he added.
Since they were introduced in 1993, cars and other vehicles have been banned from bus-only lanes for a certain time period and for all day with regard to central bus-only lanes.
There are bus-only lanes on the sides of 52 roads extending 139.6 km. Under the revised plan, 29 roads that average 120 cars an hour will operate bus-only lanes between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. during the week but only up to 3 p.m. on Saturday.
The remaining 23 roads will operate the lanes between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. every morning during the week, and 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. during weekday evenings.
According to the city government, only 271 out of 128,944 violations of the bus-only lanes took place on Saturday.