Brimstone wrote:

JNugent wrote:
Brimstone wrote:
JNugent wrote:
Brimstone wrote:

Strange, I'd always got the impression that you were in favour of
more people being allowed to travel easily by road between various
points in London? Maybe I've misunderstood.

That does not include allowing pedestrians, cyclists,
horses-and-carts, moped-riders and milk-floats to use motorways.

Which motorway is such traffic allowed to use?

The former A40(M), M41 and A102(M) - or at least, the automatic
motorway restrictions no longer apply.
All achieved by stripping those roads of their motorway status and
handing them over to Mad Ken.

So they're not motorways?

I was wondering whether you would try that line.

They used to be motorways and had the traffic-flow efficiencies of that
category.

Then they were reclassified as non-motorways precisely so that Mad Ken
could get his grubby mitts on them and downgrade the speed limits,
narrow them, or anything else of the sort of thing you'd expexct from
him (he never had authority over any of the London motorways - eg, M1,
M3(?), M4, M40, M11 - except the ones which were nobbled and handed over
to him.

"JNugent" wrote in message
...
Then they were reclassified as non-motorways precisely so that Mad Ken
could get his grubby mitts on them and downgrade the speed limits, narrow
them, or anything else of the sort of thing you'd expexct from him (he
never had authority over any of the London motorways - eg, M1, M3(?), M4,
M40, M11 - except the ones which were nobbled and handed over to him.

That tactic is not confined to London and Mad Ken. The A329(M)
Reading-Bracknell-via-M4 motorway was downgraded to an A road - I think just
the bit between Winnersh and the A4 - so they could designate Lane 1 as a
bus lane for exclusive use by park and ride buses.

On 18 Aug, 23:48, "Mortimer" wrote:
That tactic is not confined to London and Mad Ken. The A329(M)
Reading-Bracknell-via-M4 motorway was downgraded to an A road - I think just
the bit between Winnersh and the A4 - so they could designate Lane 1 as a
bus lane for exclusive use by park and ride buses.

Hmm. What's the pink bit in the middle of the M4 on the way in from
Heathrow, then?

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

John B wrote:
On 18 Aug, 23:48, "Mortimer" wrote:
That tactic is not confined to London and Mad Ken. The A329(M)
Reading-Bracknell-via-M4 motorway was downgraded to an A road - I
think just the bit between Winnersh and the A4 - so they could
designate Lane 1 as a bus lane for exclusive use by park and ride
buses.

Hmm. What's the pink bit in the middle of the M4 on the way in from
Heathrow, then?

At the time that A329(M) became A3290 west of Loddon Bridge, bus lanes on
motorways weren't allowed. The regs must have been changed after then, and
I think the first motorway bus lane was on the M4 airport spur leading into
Heathrow, followed by the eastbound one on the main M4 carriageway.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:48:51 +0100, "Mortimer" wrote:

"JNugent" wrote in message
.. .
Then they were reclassified as non-motorways precisely so that Mad Ken
could get his grubby mitts on them and downgrade the speed limits, narrow
them, or anything else of the sort of thing you'd expexct from him (he
never had authority over any of the London motorways - eg, M1, M3(?), M4,
M40, M11 - except the ones which were nobbled and handed over to him.

That tactic is not confined to London and Mad Ken. The A329(M)
Reading-Bracknell-via-M4 motorway was downgraded to an A road - I think just
the bit between Winnersh and the A4 - so they could designate Lane 1 as a
bus lane for exclusive use by park and ride buses.


Why did they need to downgrade it? They didn't downgrade the M4 when
they put the bus/politician lane in from Junc2(?)
--
Only some ghastly, dehumanised moron would want to get rid of the Routemaster.
Ken Livingstone 2001.

PeterT - "Reply to" address is a spam trap - all replies to the group please

In article ,
Petert wrote:
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:48:51 +0100, "Mortimer" wrote:

That tactic is not confined to London and Mad Ken. The A329(M)
Reading-Bracknell-via-M4 motorway was downgraded to an A road - I think just
the bit between Winnersh and the A4 - so they could designate Lane 1 as a
bus lane for exclusive use by park and ride buses.


Why did they need to downgrade it? They didn't downgrade the M4 when
they put the bus/politician lane in from Junc2(?)

AIUI motorways don't come under the ordinary traffic regulations but have
their own special legal status, which at the time didn't allow traffic to
be excluded from particular lanes. Berkshire Council / Reading Unitary
Authority (forget which it was at the time) didn't have powers over
motorways anyway so the simplest thing was to downgrade the last mile
and-a-bit to A3290. The motorway regulations were only amended to permit
special lanes when the M4 bus lanes were introduced some time later.

I was living in BrackNull and working in Thames Valley Park at the time
of the conversion so drove the entire length of the A329(M) each day.
Ironically, a year or so after I moved to Reading to reduce travelling,
the offices moved to BrackNull so I still had to trek up and down the
A329 ...

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 9th August 2008)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

Nick Leverton wrote:

AIUI motorways don't come under the ordinary traffic regulations but have
their own special legal status, which at the time didn't allow traffic to
be excluded from particular lanes.

Really? So how come trucks were banned from using the outside lane on
motorways with three or more lanes?

In article ,
Steve Firth wrote:
Nick Leverton wrote:

AIUI motorways don't come under the ordinary traffic regulations but have
their own special legal status, which at the time didn't allow traffic to
be excluded from particular lanes.

Really? So how come trucks were banned from using the outside lane on
motorways with three or more lanes?

Not my area of expertise nor of interest, sorry. I'm sure you can look
the regs up if you're interested to know what the precise reason was ...

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 9th August 2008)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

Nick Leverton wrote:

In article ,
Steve Firth wrote:
Nick Leverton wrote:

AIUI motorways don't come under the ordinary traffic regulations but have
their own special legal status, which at the time didn't allow traffic to
be excluded from particular lanes.

Really? So how come trucks were banned from using the outside lane on
motorways with three or more lanes?

Not my area of expertise nor of interest, sorry. I'm sure you can look
the regs up if you're interested to know what the precise reason was ...

You don't need an area of expertise, jsut a grasp of logic. You're
saying that the motorway regs didn't permit the exclusion of traffic (I
suspect you mean "classes of vehicles") from particualar lanes. However
it's clear that vehicles were excluded from particular lanes.

Hence your statement was incorrect.

Nick Leverton wrote:

Steve Firth wrote:
Nick Leverton wrote:

AIUI motorways don't come under the ordinary traffic regulations but have
their own special legal status, which at the time didn't allow traffic to
be excluded from particular lanes.

Really? So how come trucks were banned from using the outside lane on
motorways with three or more lanes?

Not my area of expertise nor of interest, sorry. I'm sure you can look
the regs up if you're interested to know what the precise reason was ...

The reason it was done*, in this context, isn't as important as how it
was done. Either there there were regulations allowing it in the early
sixties**, or there weren't.

[* To prevent large and/or slow-moving vehicles from clogging all the
lanes at once - which was starting to happen.]

[** For that is when the third lane ban for lorries came in - 1960s.]