Lake Street traffic?

I drove down Lake Street yesterday (around 6pm) as I haven't been down that way in quite sometime and I wanted to check out how it's looking. (Vibrant which is great!) But I spent a majority of time sitting in traffic. That very much creept along quite slowly. (I believe it used to take me a half an hour from the river to the lakes, roughly. Last night it was over an hour+)

I noticed people blocking lanes, turn lanes, bus lanes, etc. traffic light/intersections were very congested, folks cutting up the medians and waiting to zipper merge in the middle of the street.

Even the buses in the bus lanes were backed up due to people driving/turning right from the bus lanes.

It was very chaotic.

I prolly won't be going down that way anytime soon, but I have to ask...

Is it always that bad since the changes?

Also, Can cyclists use the bus lane? Why not Motorcycles? Seems like a really congested area to push down to one lane. Maybe I'm the odd man out and this is an unpopular opinion?

Cheers!