I believe the person means something like taking an existing 2 or 3 lane road and making one lane a bus lane. So you took away a lane in a way. In Seattle they

I believe the person means something like taking an existing 2 or 3 lane road and making one lane a bus lane. So you took away a lane in a way. In Seattle they have done that but the buses work really well when they don't get stuck in car traffic. Buses are often faster than cars here. There's a huge number of buses, they get good use out the special bus lanes. On the freeway it's carpool lanes than include cars and buses. In the city they do have bus only lanes. If you didn't have buses that go places people need and lots of them then converting a lane to bus only might not be useful. People make exactly the same claims you do about seattle but the bus system here is really effective.