On Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:45:53 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote:

It is understandable, though, given the atrocious state of bus
infrastructure in Central London.

Would you care to expand on that point Neil?

Bus infrastructure in Central London needs to be improved to the
standard of other western European countries. Examples might be:-

1. Allowing the bus the option to overtake and turn at traffic lights
(this is one of the best features of Dutch and German bus lanes -
basically the bus gets its own signal so it can pass in the bus lane
then turn right (left) across traffic).

2. Giving the bus the right to change traffic lights in its favour.

3. Increasing the roadway quality of bus lanes.

4. Moving bus lanes out of the gutter into the middle of the road,
where they're not going to be flying half an inch past trees and
bumping down potholes, and they aren't going to have other traffic
turning left across them.

5. Taking out situations where other traffic can either unwittingly or
intentionally end up blocking the bus lane.

6. Removing known-problem zebra crossings and replacing with
signalised crossings. In the height of the peak, you'd cut 5 minutes
at least off a journey on the 15 if that crossing at St Pauls was to
be removed and replaced with a proper crossing.

7. Removing cyclists from bus lanes. This would be easiest done using
the "bus lanes up the middle of the road with stops at traffic lights"
approach, as you could have a cycle lane at the left, then a
general-traffic lane, then a bus lane. Cycles and buses are *very*
incompatible; one is very small, one very large, and one wants to move
quickly in between stops, whereas the other wants to continue at a
slower speed without stopping.

8. Making bus lanes wide enough. There are many places in London
where you can't get a bus in the width of the bus lane.

9. Better enforcement - having a wheel in the bus lane should be
considered an offence, as that's normally enough to delay the bus.

10. Barring turnings by other vehicles that cause serious delays to
buses.

The general principle would be that infrastructure should be such that
the bus should always be kept moving at or near the speed limit except
when it wishes to stop, and when it wishes to stop that it should do
so without obstructing other traffic. This is how good it is in the
Netherlands and much of Germany, and with all of it in place the bus
driver's lot would be improved no end, and that would no doubt improve
their standard of driving.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Thu, 20 Nov 2008, Neil Williams wrote:

On Thu, 20 Nov 2008 06:45:53 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote:

It is understandable, though, given the atrocious state of bus
infrastructure in Central London.

Would you care to expand on that point Neil?

Bus infrastructure in Central London needs to be improved to the
standard of other western European countries. Examples might be:-

1. Allowing the bus the option to overtake and turn at traffic lights
(this is one of the best features of Dutch and German bus lanes -
basically the bus gets its own signal so it can pass in the bus lane
then turn right (left) across traffic).

Their left, our right, i take it? This sounds like a rather good idea.

4. Moving bus lanes out of the gutter into the middle of the road, where
they're not going to be flying half an inch past trees and bumping down
potholes, and they aren't going to have other traffic turning left
across them.

Where do you put the bus stops? How does the bus get from the
middle-of-the-road lane to the stop?

6. Removing known-problem zebra crossings and replacing with signalised
crossings. In the height of the peak, you'd cut 5 minutes at least off
a journey on the 15 if that crossing at St Pauls was to be removed and
replaced with a proper crossing.

You have to weigh this against the negative impact on pedestrians, of
course.

7. Removing cyclists from bus lanes. This would be easiest done using
the "bus lanes up the middle of the road with stops at traffic lights"
approach, as you could have a cycle lane at the left, then a
general-traffic lane, then a bus lane. Cycles and buses are *very*
incompatible; one is very small, one very large, and one wants to move
quickly in between stops, whereas the other wants to continue at a
slower speed without stopping.

This one, predictably, i really disagree with. As a cyclist, i'm held up
by buses in bus lanes far more often than i hold up a bus. The difference
in speeds is actually sufficiently small - 5-10 mph - that the bus's
frequent stopping makes it effectively much slower.

8. Making bus lanes wide enough. There are many places in London where
you can't get a bus in the width of the bus lane.

Particularly if there's an overly wide, or badly driven, vehicle in an
adjacent lane. I see this quite a lot on my commute in various places
around Old Street.

9. Better enforcement - having a wheel in the bus lane should be
considered an offence, as that's normally enough to delay the bus.

Yup.

The general principle would be that infrastructure should be such that
the bus should always be kept moving at or near the speed limit except
when it wishes to stop, and when it wishes to stop that it should do so
without obstructing other traffic. This is how good it is in the
Netherlands and much of Germany,

I'm dubious about this. Is there enough distance between stops to get up
to full speed? Are the continental stops further apart than ours?

tom

--
Also, a 'dark future where there is only war!' ... have you seen the
news lately? -- applez

On Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:18:56 +0000, Tom Anderson
wrote:

1. Allowing the bus the option to overtake and turn at traffic lights
(this is one of the best features of Dutch and German bus lanes -
basically the bus gets its own signal so it can pass in the bus lane
then turn right (left) across traffic).

Their left, our right, i take it? This sounds like a rather good idea.

Yep. It's incredibly common in both Germany and the Netherlands, and
saves no end of time. It's made easier there by the fact that they
can use tram signals for the bus (you can't here, so you need a bit
more infrastructure) but a small island and second set of lights would
do the job in most locations.

I've seen bus overtaking lanes installed in a few places, including in
Milton Keynes, bizarrely with one of them being installed where there
is no actual bus route! (Presumably for future expansion as the road
works were being done anyway). However I've not seen an
overtake-and-turn-right, despite there being *loads* of places in
London where this would be easy to implement and very useful.

Where do you put the bus stops? How does the bus get from the
middle-of-the-road lane to the stop?

You put the stops in the middle of the road as well. By having them
at (before) a signalised junction, you get several benefits in one:-
- The bus is using the time it might spend waiting at the lights to
load and unload passengers. When it's ready, it signals this and the
lights can then change in its favour.
- The bus doesn't have to leave the stop (can be difficult to get out)
then get caught in a queue at the lights.
- The passengers can also use the lights to cross to the bus stop.
- Plus all the other benefits of bus lanes in the middle of the road.

Again I've never seen this stop arrangement in London, even though
there are a number of locations (most of Oxford St, for instance)
where it would fit very well even without the middle-of-the-road bus
lanes.

6. Removing known-problem zebra crossings and replacing with signalised
crossings. In the height of the peak, you'd cut 5 minutes at least off
a journey on the 15 if that crossing at St Pauls was to be removed and
replaced with a proper crossing.

You have to weigh this against the negative impact on pedestrians, of
course.

True, though I think they'd accept it given that most pedestrians in
central London are also public transport users, and also given that
the norm for pedestrian crossings in busy central London is lights,
and not zebras.

This one, predictably, i really disagree with. As a cyclist, i'm held up
by buses in bus lanes far more often than i hold up a bus. The difference
in speeds is actually sufficiently small - 5-10 mph - that the bus's
frequent stopping makes it effectively much slower.

And makes overtakes by the bus more dangerous for both you and them,
and causes delay at stops.

I cycle myself (not, admittedly, often in London), though I am a
regular bus passenger in Central London, and my observation is that
the speed and safety of both cyclists and buses would be increased by
going for that kind of layout.

Particularly if there's an overly wide, or badly driven, vehicle in an
adjacent lane. I see this quite a lot on my commute in various places
around Old Street.

Common on the 59/68/168 around Holborn as well. Part of this is poor
signage, though; from one side of the junction you can't see the
extent of the bus lane on the other. The outcome of this is a delay
of 1-2 mins for the bus because there's a car in the bus lane, which
then has to move and can't.

I'm dubious about this. Is there enough distance between stops to get up
to full speed?

Perhaps not *full* speed, but a constant speed rather than the binary
acceleration-braking that London traffic otherwise causes.

Are the continental stops further apart than ours?

Generally, yes. This would also be worthy of consideration - the most
stupid example I've seen in London is Westferry station, where there
are two stops for the 135, one either side of the viaduct, no more
than about 20 metres apart if that. Ridiculous and wasteful.

I missed one, incidentally , in the form of taxis. Taxis should not
be allowed to stop in bus lanes, IMO, as they cause both danger and
delay by doing so. This is again a benefit of centre-of-the-road bus
lanes - the taxis can delay the other traffic instead - but you could
also go for the option of providing lay-bys for taxis that move them
out of the way of the bus.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 09:18:56PM +0000, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 20 Nov 2008, Neil Williams wrote:
The general principle would be that infrastructure should be such that
the bus should always be kept moving at or near the speed limit except
when it wishes to stop, and when it wishes to stop that it should do so
without obstructing other traffic. This is how good it is in the
Netherlands and much of Germany,
I'm dubious about this. Is there enough distance between stops to get up
to full speed?

There are in a few places. Not many though. The ones I can think of
are all on the roads that meet at Hyde Park Corner.

Mind you, there are some places where stops are *ridiculously* close
together. Fetter Lane and Chancery Lane Station are maybe 150 yards
apart at the most, and there's no reason at all for a bus to stop at
both.

--
David Cantrell | London Perl Mongers Deputy Chief Heretic

" In My Egotistical Opinion, most people's ... programs should be
indented six feet downward and covered with dirt. "
--Blair P. Houghton

On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 09:41:12PM +0000, Neil Williams wrote:

I missed one, incidentally , in the form of taxis. Taxis should not
be allowed to stop in bus lanes, IMO, as they cause both danger and
delay by doing so.

We've covered this before in this froup, and I disagree. I certainly
see no danger there, and the delay is vanishingly small compared to that
caused by delivery trucks parking in bus lanes or traffic turning across
bus lanes - and the latter won't go away with middle of the road bus
lanes, as people still need to turn right. Get rid of the delivery
trucks - or banish them to the dead of night - and the taxi "problem"
would be so small as to be not worth bothering about.

Remember, taxi drivers want to spend as little time as possible stopped.

Actually, it's not even delivery trucks that are the biggest problem.
It's security vans. AFAIK, while there is a sensible exemption from the
"no stopping in bus lanes" rule for people like the post office, there
isn't one for Securicor - and they can laugh off the occasional derisory
fine. As, obviously, can the operators of the same truck that I've seen
illegally parked in the same place every morning for several days in a
row, with a good dozen or so tickets on the windscreen every time.

This is again a benefit of centre-of-the-road bus
lanes - the taxis can delay the other traffic instead - but you could
also go for the option of providing lay-bys for taxis that move them
out of the way of the bus.

I see your point with middle of the road bus lanes, but making taxis
only stop in designated laybys (at least on some routes) would **** taxi
drivers and passengers off *a lot*, and also eat into the space
available for pavements that are already crowded.

When I use a taxi, I don't want to have to find the nearest taxi layby
and wait there until an available taxi just happens to go past, I want
to walk to the nearest place that I know lots of taxis drive past, hail
one, and jump in with the taxi stopping for maybe all of 20 seconds.
Unless you have literally thousands of those laybys all over central
London your plan will do an awful lot of damage to our very good and
useful taxi infrastructure. You'd need at least as many of them as
there are now bus stops, but spread more evenly.

--
David Cantrell | Minister for Arbitrary Justice

You know you're getting old when you fancy the
teenager's parent and ignore the teenager
-- Paul M in uknot

"David Cantrell" wrote :
I missed one, incidentally , in the form of taxis. Taxis should not
be allowed to stop in bus lanes, IMO, as they cause both danger and
delay by doing so.


But not a lot.
Once the taxi moves, the bus then moves forward twenty yards, in most cases.
But I do think that taxis should not be allowed to stop at bus stops, which
can prevent access or departure.
Not that there's a law in the world that will stop a taxi driver stopping
for a fare, even a fare stupid enough to flag down a taxi at a bus stop, and
make no move away from it.
And it would be totally unenforceable.
--

Andrew

"She plays the tuba.
It is the only instrument capable
of imitating a distress call."

On 21 Nov, 14:41, "Andrew Heenan" wrote:
"David Cantrell" wrote :

I missed one, incidentally , in the form of taxis. *Taxis should not
be allowed to stop in bus lanes, IMO, as they cause both danger and
delay by doing so.

But not a lot.
Once the taxi moves, the bus then moves forward twenty yards, in most cases.
But I do think that taxis should not be allowed to stop at bus stops, which
can prevent access or departure.
Not that there's a law in the world that will stop a taxi driver stopping
for a fare, even a fare stupid enough to flag down a taxi at a bus stop, and
make no move away from it.
And it would be totally unenforceable.
--

Whatever I might have thought, experience makes me prefer the taxi to
stop in the bus lane. It's less hazardous than people running across
the bus lane in front of my bike to reach a taxi.

On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:25:44 +0000, David Cantrell
wrote:

When I use a taxi, I don't want to have to find the nearest taxi layby
and wait there until an available taxi just happens to go past, I want
to walk to the nearest place that I know lots of taxis drive past, hail
one, and jump in with the taxi stopping for maybe all of 20 seconds.
Unless you have literally thousands of those laybys all over central
London your plan will do an awful lot of damage to our very good and
useful taxi infrastructure.

This part does, admittedly, show a bit of personal bias in that I more
or less never use taxis unless there is no other option, which in
central London is basically never.

It's worth noting that Singapore does have "taxi stops" of this
nature, though.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.

On 22 Nov, 11:56, (Neil Williams)
wrote:
It's worth noting that Singapore does have "taxi stops" of this
nature, though.

I'm sure I've seen somewhere in London like this, possibly near
Blackfriars, where taxis are banned from stopping and passengers are
directed to a nearby rank.

U

On 22 Nov, 13:03, Mr Thant
wrote:

On 22 Nov, 11:56, (Neil Williams)
wrote:

It's worth noting that Singapore does have "taxi stops" of this
nature, though.

I'm sure I've seen somewhere in London like this, possibly near
Blackfriars, where taxis are banned from stopping and passengers are
directed to a nearby rank.


There are three stretches of road in London where taxis cannot pick-up
or set-down passengers - these are shown on the road with a thick red
line. See this PCO notice...
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...ners/44_06.pdf

....and in particular this bit on the second page...

quote
London taxis can stop to pick up or set down passengers on most
stretches of Red Route. The exceptions are three stretches of road
with particularly busy bus stops or other problems:
• Wilton Road alongside Victoria Station;
• Euston Road eastbound in front of Kings Cross Station;
• Bishopsgate northbound between the junctions with Liverpool Street
and Middlesex Street.
There are plans to mark these stretches with a broad red line by the
kerb, in place of the normal single or double red lines.
/quote


There are taxi ranks nearby these locations and they might be
signposted with TfL's Bus Stop-esque Taxi rank totem pole sign...
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/resources/corp...-rank-sign.jpg