Apparently the newt lover's latest good idea is to ban licensed taxis from some bus lanes (e.g. Euston Road). The idea is that we should all use buses instead.
Now I'm not a particularly heavy user of taxis, but I do use them for client visits when the tube is inconvenient, too hot or when I have a lot to carry. The pace of modern life means that, during the week, the bus is rarely a serious contender.
Is this class war or just blinkered stupidity?
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Is this class war or just blinkered stupidity?
Both?
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Peterb
If buses were not impeded by other traffic in bus lanes they would make far better progress and more people would use them. If, for the reasons you give, you need to use a taxi why should you have priority over other car users? By 'class war' are you implying that those who can afford a taxi are superior to bus passengers?
Taxis - particularly on the Euston road - are forever stopping to pick up/set down passengers. That and the delivery vans who use the bus lanes as their personal loading bays still cause congestion.
Say what you like about Red Ken, he had the courage to go ahead with congestion charging and it has been a success. It is neither class war nor blinkered stupidity to try radical methods to solve congestion in cities.
C
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If, for the reasons you give, you need to usea taxi why should you have priority over other car users?
I think that taxis should have priority over other users as they discourage people bringing their own cars into London. A taxi that does 5 pick ups possibly prevents 5 people bringing their car into London.
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More to the point, it doesn't get lost because the driver always knows the way and doesn't take up space by parking or driving round in circles looking for somewhere to park. There's no environmental benefit in having a cab on the road for 5 successive journeys as opposed to five cars each doing one journey, but at least with a cab there's none of the ancilliary parking and navigating faff.
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>Say what you like about Red Ken, he had the courage to go ahead
>with congestion charging and it has been a success.
Depends what your view of success is?
seeing as he wants councils to reduce carparking prices to encourage people to drive back into the centre? If car park pricing was so effective why werent all the car park prices increased by £5 to start with? the infrastructure is already in place to collect. The only problem with this is the money is not in kens pocket is suppose.
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Frankly I can't stand our friend Ken but I do think he's on the right track when it comes to encouraging bus use. In order to make buses a practical proposition they need to be given priority in certain places and without knowing the location of which you speak I broadly support measures to get the buses moving. The more people who use buses, the clearer the roads will be for those who have no option but to use cars and, indeed, taxis.
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Not clear why either taxis or the Euston Road are "in play" not even that many buses though they may be routed through Euston station on the bit i see everyday. Delivery vans much more of a problem anywhere there are shops.
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I keep hearing that bus lanes make an insignificant improvement in bus times, but slow other traffic significantly by removing a lane. Anyone know if this is true or one of those modern myths?
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Certainly seems true on the Kew Bridge, where they've introduced a bus lane in the last year or so, creating tailbacks, but Wandsworth High Street has a bus lane that has proven almost entirely ineffectual, though well observed.
I guess it's one possible outcome but traffic flow is so complex, and the effectiveness of bus lanes must depend on the relationship between buses, cars and other traffic, the propensity of trucks and vans to treat it as a narrow red car park, the volume and pattern of traffic (buses and others) on the road, that it's impossible to say in general whether they are a good or a bad thing.
I'm sure there are cases where they're wonderful (Putney Hill - the road narrows after the bus lane so there'd be tailbacks anyway), others (like Kingsway northbound) where they would be wonderful if it weren't for them being blocked, and others where they cause nothing but problems.
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I lived in waltham forest and travelled into Liverpool street using the number 48. Most of the route is bus lane and it could be done in 30 minutes. If I went by car it wold take nearer 60 minutes (then some to find a parking space).
My father would always moan about bus lanes because he used a car and there were no direct buses to his place of work.
Oh and the buses can be dirty, sometimes smelly and you never know if the bus looney will sit next to you. Also travelling late at night is fun.
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Whether bus lanes are effective or not is open to debate. They have increased in number over the years without anyone being able to prove if they have merely added to congestion or if they have improved journey times. It is impossible to make comparisons of bus and car journey times in relation to the days before bus lanes as traffic has increased significantly since then.
A way to settle this once and for all would be to abolish bus lanes for one month and see what the effect was. If traffic flowed more freely with no detrimental effect on bus journey times then do away with them; If no traffic flow improvements resulted and buses ran slower then keep them.
Have we a politician out there willing to brave the hysterical enviro freaks? I doubt it.
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I don't know why you need more proof than the ABD have provided, that bus lanes are a threat to our way of life, by encouraging buses to drive on pavements. Everyone knows that it is the private drivers prerogative. And forcing drivers to come to grief, having thought the bus they were cutting up was a bicycle. No fair! See: www.abd.org.uk/buslanes.htm for another balanced view Tom.
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a follow-up: the bus users perspective: www.nfbu.org/images/cb_report.rtf. What is it that Brighton do that is so much more effective? Decriminalising presumably means other sanctions: on the spot running? 20 pushups for malefactors?
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The link given re buses doesn\'t work: try this tinyurl.com/etc9
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Tom,
I would have no difficulty with your experiment. However to measure its success or failure it would need to be compared against a period where there were unobstructed bus lanes where buses could make unimpeded progress.
The bus I sometimes take to work travels the complete length of Regent Street to Trafalgar Square; this has a bus lane most of the way. It is not unusual for the bus never to be able to get into the bus lane for the whole journey, except to stop - often at an angle straddling 2 lanes - for bus stops.
C
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Tom, I would have no difficulty with your experiment. However to measure its success or failure it would need to be compared against a period where there were unobstructed bus lanes where buses could make unimpeded progress.
Not sure I agree. We need to compare against the reality of bus lanes, not how they would be in a perfect world.
Peter
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I'm not a big fan of Ken, I do play a large precept for the GLA. However, he has got one thing spot on, the buses. You have to be either brave, stupid or both to drive around London. The buses and the tube are the fastest and less stressful way to travel around London certainly within the inner ring road.
He's put a lot of money in to the point where I live which is not a dense conurbation as such, there is a bus every 10 minutes, 70p will take me 10 miles in about 40 minutes. They run later, I can get a bus home at 12.30am on a weekday after some beers. They run mostly to time and they are getting newer and cleaner. They are getting so good that on a Saturday rather than stress myself out driving into the nearest big town (7 miles) and then spend £2 on a parking space; I'll get the bus.
The buses are getting more popular, friends that used to use a taxi home from the pub are now getting buses.
He now got his hands on the tube and I actually believe that he will get that right as well. I don't like his politics but he is passionate about London and he loves the city very much.
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Anyone else see the report a few days ago about congestion charge income in London?
Apparently it's meant to be a self-financing system but so many drivers are now avoiding the centre of the city it looks set to be a victim of its own success and suffer a shortfall of several million quid.
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The buses and the tube are the fastest and less stressful way to travel around London certainly within the inner ring road.
Although I regularly use both buses and (especially) the tube they do have their own streses. The tube is baking hot at this time of year and can put dirt all over your clothes; buses are slow.
The *least stressful* way to get about is usually a cab..... assuming someon else is paying!
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I'm not necessarily for or against but I have wondered why taxis are allowed to use bus lanes at all? It came up once in conversation with some friends - half thought taxis were public transport and the other half thought that most of the time they are only carrying one or two passengers which makes them no different to private cars.
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Interesting that someone should mention that bunny huggers should favour bus lanes. If they slow cars, then they cause increased pollution.
Course in a city like London, to travel from the outskirts to the centre, the best way is public transport.
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