U turns by London buses

[Busaholic]

When the RM 'heritage' service on the 9 finishes soon, so will the U turn these buses do in the middle of the road at their Kensington, Holland Road terminus. I am wondering if there is anywhere else on the London system where this practice still exists on a public road without benefit of roundabout or mini roundabout? As I am not able to travel over the system very frequently, I've lost touch. Examples from the past I remember were Crystal Palace Parade and Manor House, the latter in trolleybus days too.

 

[christopher]

The 9H's don't U-turn at Kensington, Well aren't meant to.

The Manor House U-turn still exists.

 

[Busaholic]

The 9H's don't U-turn at Kensington, Well aren't meant to.

The Manor House U-turn still exists.

I wondered whether they were meant to at Kensington. Certainly the one I was on did, with me on board!

 

[FOH]

When the RM 'heritage' service on the 9 finishes soon, so will the U turn these buses do in the middle of the road at their Kensington, Holland Road terminus. I am wondering if there is anywhere else on the London system where this practice still exists on a public road without benefit of roundabout or mini roundabout? As I am not able to travel over the system very frequently, I've lost touch. Examples from the past I remember were Crystal Palace Parade and Manor House, the latter in trolleybus days too.

The 63 does at its terminus on Forest Hill Road. Pulls a u turn at a traffic light controlled T junction with no markings on the road at all.

 

[Busaholic]

The 63 does at its terminus on Forest Hill Road. Pulls a u turn at a traffic light controlled T junction with no markings on the road at all.

Interested to know it still does that. Must be 30 years plus since I was there: in those days it was a short turn, even though about 3 in 4 buses were scheduled to do it. Sometimes there'd be a 40 minute gap in service through to the Palace, by far the most infrequent of all the routes that served Crystal Palace.

 

[CatfordCat]

I don't remember Crystal Palace as being a U-turn before the current bus station - buses from the north end of Crystal Palace Parade were supposed to use the roundabout at the top of Anerley Hill, and buses from the south had an off road turning circle on the east side of Crystal Palace Parade. I think it might just have been possible to do a u-turn with an RT but not sure anything longer would have made it.

(Incidentally, Crystal Palace had an odd feature for many decades in that all bus routes serving it terminated there, with no through routes.)

Honor Oak is now the southern terminus of the 63 which does the Kings Cross - Honor Oak bit, the 363 does the Crystal Palace end, running as far north as the Elephant (I think the 63 was formally run 'in sections' like that some of the time) with only the night service running through. (Incidentally, the extension south of Honor Oak was one of very few services on LT buses that replaced a railway line (Crystal Palace High Level) on closure.)

There is an arrangement similar to the Honor Oak terminus with a nearside southbound 'bus gate' allowing a traffic signal assisted u-turn at the junction of Waterloo Road / Pearman Street, just south of the 'Old Vic' - think it's used by the 4 and 26 terminating from the north, although TfL may have re-shuffled things since I noticed it. (There are some quite imaginitive bus stands around Waterloo, including one in the middle of Baylis Road for the 76s)

I can't immediately think of any others in London. The Wokingham Road terminus in Reading is still used by the frequent cross town 17 service, although it's not used by trolleybuses any more (photo at http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/561940 ) - I am told that there is a trick in getting the nearside door pillar exactly level with a 'no loading' marking on the kerb, and starting steering at that exact point, to getting one of Reading's long wheelbase double deckers round in one go...

(Edited to add - I did try to recreate that photo with a 17 a few months ago, and the driver didn't manage the turn very well...)

 

[NathanPrior]

There's one down just past Waterloo Station

 

[causton]

Barnet Church is one. (watch this space for info)

Edit (after trying and failing to turn off the road markers in Google Maps Satellite view): Route 34 terminates northbound (bottom right of screenshot), then turns using the middle of the junction, with the oddly placed right turn arrow and give way line:


https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.6529568,-0.1997306,177m/
http://www.londonbusroutes.net/times/034.htm

 

[Busaholic]

I don't remember Crystal Palace as being a U-turn before the current bus station - buses from the north end of Crystal Palace Parade were supposed to use the roundabout at the top of Anerley Hill, and buses from the south had an off road turning circle on the east side of Crystal Palace Parade. I think it might just have been possible to do a u-turn with an RT but not sure anything longer would have made it.

(Incidentally, Crystal Palace had an odd feature for many decades in that all bus routes serving it terminated there, with no through routes.)

Honor Oak is now the southern terminus of the 63 which does the Kings Cross - Honor Oak bit, the 363 does the Crystal Palace end, running as far north as the Elephant (I think the 63 was formally run 'in sections' like that some of the time) with only the night service running through. (Incidentally, the extension south of Honor Oak was one of very few services on LT buses that replaced a railway line (Crystal Palace High Level) on closure.)

There is an arrangement similar to the Honor Oak terminus with a nearside southbound 'bus gate' allowing a traffic signal assisted u-turn at the junction of Waterloo Road / Pearman Street, just south of the 'Old Vic' - think it's used by the 4 and 26 terminating from the north, although TfL may have re-shuffled things since I noticed it. (There are some quite imaginitive bus stands around Waterloo, including one in the middle of Baylis Road for the 76s)

I can't immediately think of any others in London. The Wokingham Road terminus in Reading is still used by the frequent cross town 17 service, although it's not used by trolleybuses any more (photo at http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/561940 ) - I am told that there is a trick in getting the nearside door pillar exactly level with a 'no loading' marking on the kerb, and starting steering at that exact point, to getting one of Reading's long wheelbase double deckers round in one go...

(Edited to add - I did try to recreate that photo with a 17 a few months ago, and the driver didn't manage the turn very well...)

Thanks for all that info. I remember the Crystal Palace Parade terminus very well, as I spent hours every week there when RM1 was on the 2: it wasn;t on any particular running number so didn't know when it would turn up. Took me a while to cotton on that every other trip by Cricklewood Garage buses on the 2 only went to Norwood Garage from Golders Green, due to union agreements over lengths of duties. From then onwards my trips from the Yorkshire Grey at Eltham Green went direct to Norwood via Crystal Palace on the 186, as this was for a short while the exception to the 'terminating routes only' principle at the Palace.

Although you're right about the turning circle on the east side of the Parade (I'd call it more of a slip road) some buses from the south were prevented from using it at busy times because of insufficient room to park having come out of the slip road, so they either had to do a U-turn at the point where the slip road started and then park alongside it or go even further north along the Parade and do a U-turn where no buses obstructed them on the other side of the road. I guess the time when I was there was often around the start of the p.m. peak, so not only were frequencies at their greatest but none were rushing to get back to their garages There were certainly many occasions when upwards of fifteen buses were parked there, all quite haphazardly.The route most likely to be represented by multiple examples was the 137 ( both RTs and RTLs) followed by the 3 (ditto,but mostly RT). Five or six 137s were quite common, whereas the 63 and 227 rarely produced a second bus except for a fleeting moment.

 

[Tubeboy]

Barnet Church is one. (watch this space for info)

Edit (after trying and failing to turn off the road markers in Google Maps Satellite view): Route 34 terminates northbound (bottom right of screenshot), then turns using the middle of the junction, with the oddly placed right turn arrow and give way line:
View attachment 18813

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.6529568,-0.1997306,177m/
http://www.londonbusroutes.net/times/034.htm

It does indeed, a lot of the drivers do that U turn very fast, or so it seems to me! The N20 does the same manoeuvre.

Nearby on Chesterfield Road the 184 does a U turn.

 

[Busaholic]

I've just remembered the one I liked best of all = outside Liverpool Street Station on Bishopsgate with the 649 trolleybus. I think buses on the replacement 149 did this for a time, but could be wrong about that.