No doubt there's a good reason for a BTD worker to park in a bus stop

You make a good point that behavior has changed, but the key has always been enforcement.

NYC recently started installing curb extensions for the reasons I listed. And while it may inconvenience a car for the 8 seconds the bus is stopped, thats not a problem. 50 people in the bus, 1 person in the car. Why should the bus have to pull aside when it's transporting more people?

The new silver line bus lanes on essex streets should be active by the end of this month. Will they be respected? I hope so.

J, I can get down with curb extension and the like on Washington, South End/Roxbury, Blue Hill Avenue, south of Warren, Commonwealth Avenue, etc. These thoroughfares have got the lanes necessary for necking out the sidewalk to make it easier for buses to collect their passengers.

But, the hesitancy to eliminate enough parking to make it possible for a bus to swiftly and surely swing into to the curb—matching curb height to boarding height—and then back out into traffic, is to bow to the automobile lobby.

Let's restrict automobile traffic by reducing destinations (parking places) and by enhancing the ability of buses to serve those destinations, not by reducing overall throughput by blocking lanes on already narrow roads.

I went farther than I needed to argue against J's expressed desire to facilitate bus transit by completely blocking a travel lane every time a bus stops to pick up or discharge passengers. In Boston streets are generally comprised, at most, of one travel lane in each direction and one parking lane on each side.

Rather than plug the street with a bus's loading and unloading, even the most vociferous automobile hound should join with this transit hound in wanting to enable bus transit to get out of the travel lane while dwelling at a bus stop.

The sensible solution is to design bus stops so that 40-foot buses can enter and leave them without the tail-end of the bus fully or half blocking the travel lane. If the MBTA wants bus rapid transit, then they need to go further so that the bus stops accommodate 60-foot buses. (I consider the appalling 39 bus to be failed bus rapid transit, even thought it ain't silver in color.)

Three things are necessary for this.

1. Parking spaces need to be eliminated so the bus stops are big enough.
2. MBTA and municipal police need to vigorously ticket illegal parkers. (The current campaign is a media campaign and a laughable joke.)
3. Bus drivers need to be trained to actually work the steering wheel to fully enter and exit the bus stop.

Finally, it would be icing on the cake if the law was changed to give transit vehicles the right-of-way over other traffic when moving from a transit stop into the traffic lane.

Yes, you are absolutely correct. A couple of months of vigorous ticketing, followed by vigorous towing.

We apparently love the revenue produced by towing entire neighborhoods of cars (one side at a time, of course), but we can't be arsed to tow vehicles parked in No Stopping zones.