Along the same lines as what came first, the chicken or the egg, I ask - what came first, the bus lane or the congestion?
For a couple of years I have sat here smugly at the computer in my wee village in Scotland, reading about all the complaints of bus lanes, congestion etc and rejoicing in the fact that my work is 20 mins away, on the motorway and I can park in the car park of the store.
Unfortunately, I am now working in Edinburgh for a couple of months and, oh my God, i just could not put up with this on a daily basis! Instead of travelling time of 40 mins per day, I am lucky to be less than 2 and a half hours!
Anyway, to get to the point, if I leave work at 3.50pm, I can do the 5 mile stretch of urban road through Edinburgh City Centre in as little as 7 to 8 mins.
However, when the bus lane opens at 4pm, and I leave work at 4.10pm, it can take me up to 35 mins to do the same 5 miles!!
Yes, the traffic will be a bit heavier but I can't help but think that this is purely down to the fact that the traffic is only on one lane.
I know this is what the traffic planners want to prevent cars in the city (David Begg was originally from Edinburgh), but I just can't help but think if there were no bus lanes the traffic would be so so much better.
So going back to my original question, are the bus lanes the cause of the congestion, or the solution?
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Cause
Bobby,
What is perhaps starting to dawn on you after this experience, is that all traffic management schemes are designed to slow down cars as much as possible so that you are finally forced to enjoy the pleasures of queueing in the rain for a bus which doesn't run to time and doesn't go even close to where you want to go so that you have a further lengthy walk in the rain in order to get to/from work. It's called planning. If possible stay (smugly!)in your wee village.
I gather that, because of congestion on mobile phone networks new rules are going to come in. There will be massive taxes on phones and calls (about 80% - probably plus Value Added (!) tax). You will be charged an extra £5 per day if you use them in a congestion zone (most cities). You will be charged heavily to park them on your desk at your place of work and when you do make a call you will have to stand in a specially constructed smelly, cold (or extremely hot)shed along with many other people (or none if you are lucky) These sheds will be at least 10 minutes walk away from where you are and will only connect you with someone that you don't wish to speak to.
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To get people on buses you have to make them appear better than cars. That usually means faster in a given situation. Now you cant make buses faster, in fact you slow them down by doing away with routemaster types and having a single crew who has to drive and take money.
So what do you do? you slow car traffic down.
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