Transit passengers making their way out of Riverdale this morning enjoyed bypassing cars and trucks heading out of the subdivision as the city began its experiment with a designated transit lane along Lewes Boulevard.

The city announced last week it would establish a temporary transit and bike lane by placing pylons along Lewes Boulevard between 7:30 a.m. and 9 a.m. today through Friday in an effort to ease commuter congestion.

Signs were put in place to let drivers know where the transit lane was.

The move comes as city buses are often delayed getting out of Riverdale and making connections with other routes downtown early in the morning, when traffic is congested.

Many drivers are dropping off their kids at one of the half-dozen or so schools and/or daycares in the neighbourhood before heading toward downtown, making traffic an issue at that time of day.

Transit manager Cheri Malo was on-hand in Riverdale this morning along with other city staff to see first-hand how it would go.

“It was fantastic,” Malo told the Star.

Buses were all on schedule, she confirmed.

That enabled residents – including students at Yukon College – to get where they needed to be on time.

There were no issues with drivers using the bike/transit lane, Malo said.

Traffic in both lanes continued to flow, though there remained a long line of cars, SUVs and pickup trucks making their way out of the neighbourhood.

Malso did acknowledge that F.H. Collins Secondary School and Vanier Catholic Secondary School – both in Riverdale – are in the midst of exams, so classes aren’t on as normally scheduled.

Thus, that may reduce the amount of morning traffic in the area this week.

While the exam week schedule had been published earlier, Malo said it wasn’t until after the plans were in place that the city realized the schools’ regular schedule would not be in place.

As well, all of the schools in the area will be closed Friday for a teachers’ professional development day. That’s expected to have a major impact on traffic that morning – for the better.

Though the school schedules are slightly different this week, Malo said, the city expects to learn a lot from the bus lane experiment.

Even with high school exams underway this week, Malo noted, there was still a long line of traffic heading out of the neighbourhood.

She and other city staff will continue to be on-hand monitoring the situation each morning this week.

After the full week is complete, staff will debrief and look at where to go from there.

They will examine things like whether to continue such experiments in the future, whether to look at a more permanent arrangement, whether to keep the lane as one lane of traffic, and so on.

As the week continues, Malo said, she wants to remind cyclists that the cycling lane is still open to them, with buses sharing the lane.

She also voiced her thanks to all the drivers of personal vehicles who helped out by keeping to the main lane of traffic this morning.