www.bbc.co.uk
That seems excessive to me - while I agree with placing fencing along high-risk locations, such as between the station and the hospital site, it seems absurd to build fencing along the parts of the route where the foot/cycle path is separated from the busway by a wide grassy verge, and such a requirement would never be put on a regular road, which is the most similar infrastructure.Cambridgeshire County Council are now considering providing a fence long the whole length of the busway:
Cambridge guided busway could introduce safety barriers
A council has proposed extra safety measures to the guided busway from Huntingdon to Cambridge.
www.bbc.co.uk
If only this approach to safety was taken to the roads....Another section of the busway is going to have a 30 mph speed limit see here:
Busway speed limit reduced in Histon to boost pedestrian safety
Cambridgeshire County Council says it is improving safety for pedestrians crossing the route.
If it was a proper road the bit through there probably would be 30mph. But the whole thing is getting a bit ridiculous.
I genuinely mean that I would love it if every single crash where someone got hurt (or worse, died) anywhere on the road network was taken this seriously, looking both at infrastructure and the driving standards of the public (including taking people's licences away much quicker).
The difference in times for 50mph vs 30mph is just over one minute (1m13s according to Google). In reality it will be quite a bit less than this as the bus won’t be doing a constant 50mph for the whole distance due to acceleration and deceleration times. The time difference will likely be under one minute, which is a rounding error really.
Regular busways need to be wider than guided ones, so that could be a very significant set of works.
...and the buses stop in Histon anyway, as it's quite a large village, which reduces the impact even further.
Exactly, which is why the Cambridge one is guided in the first place.
You couldn't do the whole busway but certainly some sections in some places it could be changed. Histon looks like one such place where it could be converted to a normal busway without taking up more land.
www.yourvoice.westyorks-ca.gov.uk
The guided busway only has one stop in Histon, which is at the old railway station.
Leeds are proposing getting rid of thr a64 guided bus ways and replacing with segregated bus lanes
A64 bus priority improvements: phase 2
Your feedback has been analysed. You can read the full outcome report here. We are working in partnership with Leeds City Council to deliver a range of proposals to improve how you travel along the A64 between Marsh Lane (on the edge of the Leeds city centre) and
I know - that's why I said 'buses' (plural) and 'stop' (singular).
But why would you spend a lot of money doing that (and creating a lot of disruption to services during re-construction) instead of spending a lot less selectively adding some fencing where there may be particular hazards for pedestrians & cyclists?
Haven't they even decommissioned the ticket machines at the stops, or are those still present and functional?
Even in Bristol where you can't buy on board, the MetroBus feels sluggish... apart from the section on the M32.
But that's only because some operators (Transdev Harrogate, mainly) didn't want to go to the expense of putting the guide wheels on.
With franchising coming in, it would be easier to enforce use of the guideways... but as others have said, technology has moved on and guided buses seem a bit outdated now. Especially in urban settings like the one on Manchester Road in Bradford. One of the big issues with that guideway is that it only operates in one direction- mostly towards Bradford city centre but with one section dedicated to outbound buses instead. When buses reach the changeover point they have to cross 3-4 lanes of traffic to do so. Signal priority is in place, but this is Bradford where traffic lights are treated as a guide rather than a hard and fast rule.
The technology doesn’t stop people using the bus lanes though. It may discourage some people but certainly not everyone. Not in the days of cloned number plates.
Guided busway car traps don't do much either judging by the many instances of people driving their cars on the various guided busways.
They should recover it from the driver, that is what the driver's insurance is for. Fortunately, most people have the sense to not drive onto a guided busway, which very clearly isn't a road. I believe on the Cambridge one, a car drives on once or twice a year, it really isn't that common.
In my view, the reasons for building a guided busway rather than a road exclusively for use by buses is usually that it is narrower, so it can fit in alignments where a regular bus road wouldn't fit, or it leaves you space for a bike and pedestrian path that you otherwise couldn't fit.
