An update, from the BBC:

 

I think it's more likely that Siemens ITS have been offering the councils that run traffic lights new options for fancy software. Like "optimised" and "adaptive" timing and linking over wider ares (and inevitably in the cloud too). I assume that this "quick" change isn't shorter in itself, it's the green before it that is shorter than expected. Or is it?

 

I notice that some traffic lights in Reading seem to have been changed to very short phase and cycle times. Doesn't do much for the safety of cyclists. Is this just the normal attitude of Reading BC to cyclists, or does the quote above suggest that there has been a national direction.

 
Another update, from the BBC:

 
An update, from the BBC:

 

The commenters don't seem to enjoy the Facebook page owner's enthusiasm for guided bus against rail.

 
So how is the Cambridge Guidded Busway going years after the most recent post in this thread?

From Facebook, a post that has generated over 800 comments and over 600 shares

 
An update on the Fareham - Gosport BuswY. was down there yesterday (Saturday 6th). The road seems largely complete up to the top of the Rowner Road bridge connection. I would say that the road has had its final surface, the bus stops are installed, probably just fencing, railings and landscaping to be completed.

 

A fifth of the price of a railway. Who'd be a prophet, eh?

 
Of course, they weren't always at eachothers throats.

Cast Iron were a key member of CANBER in the mid-2000s, so I spent quite a lot of time helping them to try and stop the busway, and get a rail solution built instead. As a result, I well remember some of the "interesting" publicity material that the promoters came out with.

Here is one such example from October 2007. With apologies in advance to Sade, I give you "Smooth Operator" :


Whilst hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing, it is well worth reading the whole piece, given the way things have turned out.

 

I've had this month's freebie from NCE. Here is the BBC's report on the matter.


Part of this report seems to contradict the reports of what happened in the earlier case. Cambridgeshire agreed a settlement of £800,000 for the £36 million claim, with a legal bill to make the eyes water. It looks as though BAM are not going to be so nice this time. The busway is, according to them, still in good working order. The truth will be out there somewhere, and it will be interesting to see what it is.

 
Update on Cambridge guided busway saga with the Council suing BAM Nuttall

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/bam-nuttall-faces-legal-action-as-cambridgeshire-busway-row-resurfaces-20-07-2020/

 

I heard ...
(1) able to get a lot more central / eurpoean grant for a busway than for a railway
(2) flexibility off ends to run into Cambridge centre and round lots of road-branches at the outer end to give direct services from lots of places away from the old rail line into the city
... but there were probably many more positives for the busway; I was only taking an interest quite late in the game, and then only from a potential knowledgable occasional users viewpoint and not as a campaigner.  The Cast Iron campaign had by that point just lost the decision.


Very good question about the ability of what is essentially slab track versus sleeper track to withstand limited movements of the underlying land and earthworks.   I don't have a very good answer, but highlighting the question again in case anyone else does.   May have been asked before, but I can't remember it and I have been here for 12 years!

 
I think the original Rowner Road plan was to drop that road to the old track level by removing the existing bridge.   Sort of opposite to what they did at Newgate Lane and Wych Lane, where they brought the busway down to road level.    But now the bus lane will just rise to a T junction at existing level.

I’d have thought it best to keep Rowner Road Bridge and eventually run the busway under it?

 

Two contributions -

Firstly, I was told some years ago that the crucial factor behind this being promoted as a guided busway rather than reopening the St Ives to Cambridge branch as a railway was the cost of repairing the bridge over the Great Ouse at St Ives and upgrading it to current railway standards. My source was involved with the project for a government agency, and someone I would regard as reliable. Do those costs now stack up? Too late to do anything about it now!

Secondly, (admitting that this might be nonsense coming from a non-engineer), my limited knowledge of railway infrastructure and formations is that embankments are not entirely stable structures, but subject to subsidence and movement and therefore need constant vigilance and periodic work to adjust for this. If you are running rails on ballast I have always assumed that minor movement is dealt with by tamping and tinkering with the ballast. Presumably if instead you have laid concrete busway sections on the formation they will either start to come out of alignment or crack, unless the formation was entirely reconstructed to modern motorway standards (and we all know of dips in well used motorways where movement has clearly occurred). I don't know the extent of reconstruction of the earthworks, but entirely rebuilding them strikes me as a very expensive alternative to rebuilding one bridge. Was this a mis-calculation that you could just lay concrete busway sections on an old railway formation without proper consideration of its suitability to support them? Anyone know if this is entirely uninformed speculation on my part?

Apologies in advance if this  has all been aired earlier on this thread before I joined the forum.

 
A further update on the Gosport - Fareham Busway, yesterday(18/7/20).

The starting section from the existing busway appears to have been dugout to full depth for the preparation of the pavement. In the middle section (to where the existing cycle path crosses it) all the former rails appear to have been removed and excavation to partial depth. The last section surveyed and marked out to the junction with the Rowner Road (which I still can't visualise).

 

The original cost was supposed to be £116.2 million, £92.5 million of which was to come from central government. As with Bristol's MetroBust, the government contribution was fixed, leaving Cambridgeshire with a mere £23.7 million to pay. The cost of reopening the railway had been put at £48 million. The final cost was at least £180 million, giving CCC a bill of almost £90 million. None of the businesses who had undertaken to contribute to the cost actually did so.

Cambridgeshire CC launched a legal action against BAM Nuttall for £60 million, budgeting £6,5 million for legal fees. BAM Nuttall counter-sued for £43 million. Part of the action concerned a cost of £21 million for replacing defective parts of the busway, which had been open for under 2 years, which they said was a result of construction defects and BAM Nuttall said was fair wear and tear. CCC scored a Pyrrhic victory on the steps of the court, cutting the £43 million counter claim to £800,000. Legal and professional charges put the total cost at over £150 million, £26 million of which came from the council budget. Other necessary transport projects had to be cancelled to pay the tab. Conservatively, the total cost  so far has been about £250 million to build a crumbling busway in place of a railway that would have cost half that, even with traditional runaway railway costs. Fair enough, the railway didn't run into the city centre or science park. The latter got its own railway station in 2017 on the Fen line, Cambridge North, which connects to the busway.

The auguries are not good for Cambridgeshire CC. Based on the first court case, I would expect BAM Nuttall to defend the case robustly. If the repair cost was estimated at "at least £36.5 million" three years ago, it is anybody's guess what they will be now with inflation and further deterioration. BAM Nuttall probably have better legal resources than CCC.

Worryingly for the people of Bristol and surrounding areas, the Cambridgeshire Busway was the often-cited exemplar for MetroBust. There are, apparently, issues with the busway there. At least it is short and pointless, rather than crucial, and having been unused for a lot of the time since it was built, it shouldn't have had the same wear and tear.

 
Has anyone totted up the total cost of the busway?

You could probably have had a high speed rail link for the price.

 
From Transport Extra

 
An update on the extension for the Fareham - Gosport busway. The first part of the extension (Fareham end) has been cleared and is now a clear view through. More of the old track is visible. Further on they have cleared a "busway width" on the exiting cycle route. Southern Gas Networks are also working there on a new large bore main, hope the two organisations are communicating.

 
Did a cycle ride down the Gosport - Fareham Busway yesterday to see what progress on the extension.

They have cleared the trees from the end of the existing busway. Intrigued to see that there was still a single rail track amongst the remains of the vegetation. Also a set of buffers at the end of the track, presumably all left from when it was finally used to supply the RNAD Bedenham. Also a sign has appeared at the Fareham end announcing to intention to extend that end, which is part of the Fareham development plan.

No sight of any plant or anything, so presumably awaiting the next phase in spring.

 

Just seen that option now. Every day's a school day - thanks!

 
NLS gives you lots of choices for the background map - ESRI, Bing, MapTiler, OpenStreetMap, OS OpenData, Stamen, Open TopoMap... but not Google!

 
I think the part of the NLS georeferenced maps section is the transparency slide bar between the old map on displace and a real world image underneath.  There is a lot of cloud and other dark patches on the NLS satellite imagery so maybe it is from a non-Google source.

 

Google are clearly trying to squeeze a bit more revenue out of their mapping service, but they can't charge you to look at anyone else's maps - so the NLS map archive should be safe!

Typically it affects websites that show a Google Maps view on their 'where to find us' page; they have had to register with Google who then monitor usage and start to charge once the map is accessed a certain number of times.

 
In Reply #200 on: November 07, 2018, 08:28:08 am I used the Where's the Path app. If you have used the App before or intend to please note this announcement:
I am not sure how many other apps/sites will be affected. Hopefully not things like the National Library of Scotland map archive.

 

That is the second fatal accident on the busway since it opened in 2011. There have also been other serious incidents.

 
From Cambridge News

 

Perhaps a hugely expensive guided system opens the door for an even more hugely inflated raft of outside funding.

 
I finally got to travel along th infamous mis-guided busway from Cambridge to St Ives in September 2017. I had previously worked contracts in the area during 2004-6 and so I had some background as to how contentious losing the existing mothballed railway was.

On the plus side, the service was cheap, very frequent and ran until midnight, (probably not something a rail operator would have offered if we are honest).

On the negative side, the bus seating was cramped and the bus itself so low down that you could see precious little of the surrounding countryside.

But what most puzzled me was the need for the hugely expensive guidance system, given that we travelled through flat and broad countryside. A new road with a central barrier would have suited just fine, as would an enforced speed limit of 60mph

 

Don't worry - I have sat in meetings with staff from Cambridgeshire County Council's highways department and their solicitors discussing a proposed bus link and they have not been certain about its status and how to deal with laying services, and they must be the keenest "bus laners" in the country!

 

Yes they are 'Protected Streets' under Section 61 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991:


However the Secretary of State can prescribe criteria thatstreet authorities must use in deciding whether to designate a protected street (Section 62)

The guidance in the Code of Practice for the Co-ordination of Street Works and Works for Road Purposes and Related Matters
States that:


This also identifies that various features can be protected by other legislation including:




However, Section 91 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 defines a transport authority as:



So I am not clear that a busway is a 'transport undertaking'

 

The bus seats look nice and comfy !!

 

The M4, like all other motorways and one or two other cases, is a special road as defined by the Special Roads Act of 1949, now part of the Highways Act. Different rules apply.

 
There must be a section in the Highways Act which enables highway authorities to prevent the laying of SU's equipment under the carriageway, although I can't recall it off hand.  After all, we don't see BT digging up the M4 (under statutory undertakers are available)

 
There was a specific section quoted on Hantsweb (Hants CC web site) for the original documentation for the busway (presumably since archived), which apparently prevented the laying of services under it. Have tried to find again without success, only that they are extending the busway another mile towards Gosport.

 

Its not quite that simple I am afraid.

The right to lay services in a 'street' (not a highway) comes from various Acts, but is regulated by Part 2 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991.

Section 48 of that Act defines what is meant by a 'street'.  Although a highway is a street but the definition is wider:


Whether this includes busway I do not know without further research. 

 

Yes this is the case. If it is created as part of the public highway, utilities have the right to lay their cables or pipes underneath.

 
It might be clearer to look at the start of the busway, https://goo.gl/maps/EYD6XCFEQbJ2 although the road signs are confusing. I seem to remember the signs being the same as the previous StreetView image, not having realised they were changeable signs (to busy avoiding being squashed on the Brompton).
The point about them not being part of the public highway might explain why it is not well marked on internet mapping, Google or Bing, and it also took a long time to get on the OS mapping data.
A view of how it related to the old railway line, and the new NCN 224 can be seen at https://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepath.htm?lat=50.844928&lon=-1.186316&lz=15&rz=16&lt=Old%2025K&rt=satellite&lov=OSM%20Cycle&rov=None&lgrat=None&rgrat=None.

 

From my experience, they get around what is known as the Street Works Code  (the legislation which permits utility undertakers to dig up roads and lay services in them) applying to "non-guided" busways by specifically not making them part of the public highway, but holding them as land assets or leaving them in the ownership of developers subject to rights. One of the consequences is wrangling between the parties as to whether they should be available for use by emergency services.

 

One would assume so - so the barriers are not part of the 'level crossing' (which, as you say, is controlled by traffic signals) but rather they purport to secure the busway when it is closed.

 
It's a back to front level crossing though; the barriers close off the busway, not the open-to-all road. And there are standard traffic lights at the junction. Presumably these are the anti-racers barriers that Cycling Sid mentioned.

 
It is a funny old game - as this is a busway, albeit an unguided one, it's OK for it to have a level crossing: https://goo.gl/maps/4BkLGz52hn82

A railway, with trains carrying the same number of passengers at the same speed, would presumably require a bridge here costing maybe of £100,000,000. I'm sure this makes sense to someone...

 
Presumably like the Fareham - Gosport busway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_East_Hampshire_Bus_Rapid_Transit.

Buses and bicycles only along the old Gosport branch, nice and straight with few crossings. They have to barrier it off at night to keep the racers off.

The used a specific section in the Highways (?) regs so that there can be no services underneath it, so no digging it up. Can't remember which section, could be used elsewhere, although a lot of the Sustrans routes have fibre underneath them to offset the original cost.

 
The answer may be (to bring this into a thread I did not know existed when I made this contribution a little while back-

 

Just think - if you were fed up of being woken by the first bus of the morning going past your bedroom window, you wouldn't even need to ask the council or bus company sort it out. Just nip out in the dead of night with a tin of black paint and a tin of white, and you could reroute the service down the next street.

 
Is it reserved white line or can anyone drive along it?

 
A little delving suggests that CAM might be similar to what Mayor Marvin is proposing for Bristol - a bus that follows a white line painted on the road. On the bright side, at least it won't require pointless sections of guideway.

 
It seems Cambridge wanted more busways, but then changed their mind! but for what?
From New Civil Engineer

 
It will operate like a normal bus.  General opinion round here is that the council finally realised the "guided" part of the busway was a total waste of money.

I'm very much looking forward to Cambridge North opening.  At present, the journey to Cambridge station (on public transport) adds about 45 minutes to my rail journey, so driving is often an easier choice.  Cambridge station gets incredibly busy at the weekends.  I would argue it is probably not fit for purpose, in it's current form.  A few weeks ago, I counted 30+ people queuing for the TVMs (and roaming staff with Avantix machines) and about 25 at the manned ticket office.  The queue for the ticket office moved so slowly, I missed my train.  I ended up driving the journey, which actually turned out to be much cheaper.

 
A new section of the busway has been under construction for what seems an age - and this evening I got a first chance to use the footpath alongside it - headed from the Milton Road towards the new Cambridge North Station, which will probably open just after I finish all my regular trips up here.  The new taxi rank is also open at Cambridge Station.



I'm no transport professional ... so forgive me if the following questions have obvious answers:

1. How are the buses guided along this guided busway?   I don't see any raised guides, just a dashed white line, and I'm wondering is the buses are guided by having a chap with a steering wheel sitting in them, reading the road layout with his eyes and adjusting the vehicle's direction accordingly?    How does this vary from a regular bus?

2. I'm working in one of the buildings just behind the fence, but I have to walk some 400 yards north west to get on the guided busway path on which I can then walk the 400 yards back south east to where this picture was taken; I think it's a couple of hundred yards further on to the station site.  Why isn't there a path / crossing  from the busway into this heavy employment area, allowing people working there to get across to the residential area opposite (which is connected) and the station?  It would make the path / busway / station so much more useful!

3. There's no queueing sign or queue system at the new taxi rank at Cambridge station.  A train arrives and people flood out, staring at the front of the taxis and walking back to find one that's available.   Then the front taxis move away and the other pull up, bypassing the people walking up to them and loading people who arrived later off the train.  Why isn't there a "queue here" sign or something, and / or a series of numbered loading points to help the customer know what to do?  Is the system set up more to look pretty without signage than to work?

I love learning lessons from elsewhere in the UK, but sometimes I'm so saddened to feel that I'm learning what to avoid and not what to ask for our council to copy!

 

Ah, so perhaps that wall isn't just for flood defence then?

 

Yes.  I've just made it and decided it's more risky than I thought!

 
The Cambridge busway is 16 miles long in two bits with a service road one side and an embankment along most of the other. "Derailments" occur at the points where the bus enters or leaves the guided bits. Bristol's as yet unfinished busway is 2.4 miles long with 9 entry / exit points, and has the New Cut of the River Avon beside it on one side.

Time for a new risk assessment?

 
I rather think that would be the Office of Rail and Road themselves - a (mis)guided bus being perhaps the worst of both worlds. 

Also, presumably, the P45 will be involved.  As it was on the previous occasion:

 
Presumably the ORR will be involved.

Is there a bus equivalent of the RAIB the BAIB?

 
Indeed - thank you for that alert, eightf48544. 

From the BBC:

 
Seems there was another derailment last Thursday.

 

An unpopular move to relocate to an out-of-town location...

 
Surely Cuthbert Dibble and Grubb are now based at Trumpington rather than Trumpton ?

 

I'm rather embarrassed at how long it took me to work out that amusing reference, Western Pathfinder. 

 

A very good question that I don't have an answer to. Most of the incidents have been caused by people being on the busway when they shouldn't - sadly, an 81 year old lady died there in November last year. One was caused by the bus missing the start of a section of busway, which bothers me a bit, as the Ashton Vale route has nine sections in the two-mile guided bit. That cost the bus company ^90,000 in repairs to the track, as well as the bus. One was caused by a bus driving at speed into the back of another. Given that the buses are supposed to be the only vehicle on the route, I would expect a greater degree of safety than with buses on ordinary roads shared with drivers.

 
How would that compare statistically with accidents suffered by non-guided buses?

 
That's at least the sixth accident since the busway opened.

 
Cuthbert Dibble & Grubb et all will have turned up to help out no doubt !

 
I thought it was supposed to be  a guided busway. Perhaps it is really a misguided busway (in more ways than one). 

 
From the Cambridge News

 

... it was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, turning in his grave. 

 
I've being working a couple of hundred yards from Chesterton Station - that's about 2 miles north of Cambridge station on the line to Ely.  Small problem that (as yet) Chesterton Station isn't open ... and from leaving the place I've been working (part of the science park and business park) I have to make my way to the main station to catch my train. I set off at 16:30

There's the Park and Ride bus which runs to the station every 15 minutes or so from up the main road to the east of the science park, which runs via the cinema complex and the centre of town.  There's the guided bus, which runs every 15 minutes from the stop on the south side of the science park, which calls at Jesus Green and the City Centre on its way.  Then there's the number 2 which runs from within the Science Park every 10 minutes, but takes a very much longer route and doesn't go as close to the station.

All three of these buses, which call at different stops at the science park (you will have noticed) leave south on the same road, but only the No. 2 actually stops there.  And they're joined by a non-stop service "C" every hour and a limited stop occasional service 9.  I find myself wondending which stop to go to, and why all the buses can't stop where the number 2 does for the science park - it would save on bus stops, and it might bring the operators a bit more business with (in effect) a five minute service not a 15 minute one.  Oh - and it might allow for quicker connections too.

My bus, at 16:45, was scheduled to take 19 minutes to cover the two miles to Cambridge Station.  It didn't of course - it took almost 25 minutes as on a Friday afternoon it wended it's intricate way around the back streets of the city for (it turned out) 2 passengers, then queued it way through the shooping street and cafe area on the way to the station.  And it went right past the station without stopping (or to be accurate, stop-start in the traffic but not letting passengers off) to the stop that's behind platform 3, quite a way from the station entrance.   Fortunately, I stopped a fello traveller ducking behind a container and found the unadvertised back gate to the station, and open (even a member of staff checking tickets) so I was able, by a whisker, to catch my 17:15.

The guided bus (for that's what I was on) may make the journey from St Ives to the Science Park very much quicker, but the journey from there to the station averaged just 7 m.p.h. I can't say I'm impressed with this element of the brand new service that was introduced - with great fanfare and at huge expense - just a couple of years ago.  And indeed I can't help concluding that others think it's unfit for the purpose of linking people in the technlogy part of the city to the nation's local public transport hub - otherwise they wouldn't be bulding a new station.  And - I note - extending the guided busway to the station.  As I walked, close to that new section, I wondered at the heavy machinery involved in the building of the track, and at the deep digging that seemed to be going on. It muts be costing a fortune.  In the room in which I was training, a deep rumbling noise had me asking my delegates what was going on, and they assured me that it was something they're quite used to - deep pile driving for foundations for the new busway. Apparently the concrete that's used for the busway further north has been cracking due to poor foundations, and this time they're taking to chances.  Someone suggested that they might have done better with vehicles that ran on steel rather than concrete, as that has a degree of flexibility and would have been much quicker and cheaper to build.  A colleague of his suggested crosswise timbers under the steel rails, which would act as a further cusion, reduce subsidence possibilities further, and make for a comfortable ride.  Of course, this is Cambridge but even here I doubt whether such a novel idea would fly.

 


...so add a Boris bus body....

The Boris bus is 4.38m high (14'5"), so a bit higher than C1, (about 4.00m) but shorter and narrower. It would still be safely below  standard contact wire height of 4.7m.

Could they run in multiple?

OTC

 
The LMS experimented with a road rail coach in the 1930s.

http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r137.html

Gives a good account it also mentions a road rail lorry for freight.

Plus ca change

 
Or, more like what was suggested, this experimental beastie?

 
Something like this, maybe?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_142

 

The thought crossed my mind that since we have track maintenance vehicles that can run both on rubber tyres and steel rails, it shouldn't be beyond the wit of UK bus and train builders without full order books to devise a bus that can do the same. We could then have a "guided" bus that could use existing tracks, even street tramlines and still have the flexibility to terminate in the high street. The replacement of rails with short-life concrete guideways is quite pointless.

The performance and economy of a bus running on rails would be spectacular, with perhaps 20% of the rolling resistance of the tarmac alternative.

The down side of buses is of course quality and capacity. Cambridge, as a UK hub of world creativity, deserves better.
 
OTC

 

I agree with one quarter of what Btline says, which is a new Commonwealth record. The winner is his view on the misguided busway.

On the simple measure of passenger numbers, it is a big success. But a reinstated railway, with reasonable bus connections at the other end, would have been equally successful, and less of a problem in a number of other ways.

From an engineering point of view, it has been a disaster. The problems of putting concrete where rail used to be were clearly not appreciated before this scheme began. There were flooding issues, especially affecting a bridge, that stalled work for a time. And now, only three years later, the structure is falling apart. BAM Nuttall say the predicted ^20 million cost of repair is maintenance, Cambridge County Council think otherwise. Having "lost"* one costly court battle with BAM Nuttall, they are threatening a return to the courts. Time will tell.

On a safety level, it has seriously underperformed against rail, with at least 5 serious accidents, the worst being one bus driving into the rear of another at speed. One involved the bus missing the guideway after a junction, the others mainly involve people who shouldn't have been there.

On an expansion level, it could be said that the new bit to the science park could indeed have been done by rail rather than road, but all this involves imagination and foresight. Busways became the flavour of the month around 2005, as Alistair Darling set about scrapping plans for tram systems. Already, they are beginning to look like some of the awful short-term decisions made in the early 1960s. The biggest symbol of this in Bristol, for me, is the rise and fall of the Magistrates Court in Nelson Street, designed in the 60s, built in the 70s, demolished 2014, so affording better views of 14th century St Johns Chapel.

To use the King James Version of Proverbs 26:11:

I am not so sold on turning the A14 into a motorway, especially not if it had a railway running alongside. If Cambridgeshire CC asked the government for the money, they would get short shrift because
a) We're not building roads
b) You've just had a magnificent new Misguided Bust Way
c) It's not in London.

And a railway would have allowed either greedy developers to develop a new town on a greenfield site, or sympathetic developers to build much-needed affordable housing where it is needed to expand the economy [/hint of sarcasm]. The busway is not entirely relevant to the building. It may be the other way around, that the business case for the busway relied on the housing. (Like the business case for Bristol's busway relied on the now cancelled plan for housing in Long Ashton. Pah!)

I'm no Brummie, but I believe the tram route is far from pointless. AIUI, Centro realised they would not get approval and funding for a "big bang" expansion a la Manchester Metrolink Phase 3, so decided on a "bite size chunk" approach. This particular mouthful is arguably the most complex on the local wish list. It will connect Snow Hill to the city centre, but is strategically more important as a piece of the future network. The renaissance of Curzon Street will provide the obvious next step.

 
This MISguided busway has got to be one of the worst mistakes in modern UK travel planning.
The entire route should be ripped up immediately and turned back into a railway.

At the same time, the A14 - a botch job done on the cheap - needs to be converted into dual 3 lane trunk road (plus hard shoulder).

Of course, the government have also used the busway to allow greedy developers to build a new town on a greenfield site outside Cambridge, leading to unacceptable urban sprawl.

This is on a par with the bungled attempt to reintroduce trams in Greater Birmingam, where a perfectly good rail route (which could have eased the pressure on the clogged up New Street) has been irreversibly converted into a pointless tram at a cost of millions.

 


I simply mentioned three flows I know of ... but I am NOT a Cambridge expert and there are other too such as these.    I too have been caught by the A not stopping at (m)any stops from the Science Park to the City, but it does of course stop a number of times on a typical run at traffic lights and in traffic.    At present, the last train from Cambridge north (via Ely) is at 00:10 ... so that still wouldn't be your way if you caught the last train from London unless that was extended (they could well do that ...)

Some flows could be met / improved with rather less than a new bus road and station, but together they give an awful lot of answers.   I'll admit to being one who would have preferred to see rail rather than guided bus to St. Ives, but the guided bus is streets (or guides) ahead of everyone relying on a car or on buses on the city streets and A14, and I hope it works in well with the new station, which is also very welcome indeed, and being on the double track main line will be able to be served by a lot of trains.  Let's hope that does happen, and we end up something with the activity of Haymarket rather than Ardwick!

 

I pay Tribute to Brucey for highlighting a problem that affects many of us gentlemen of a certain age.

 
The other issue with the guided buses is that they "miss out" stops on the unguided sections.  The stop nearest me is served only by the number 9 and C, despite the more regular A and P&R services passing through.  The nearest stop for the A is over a mile away.  I have a friend who lives in St. Ives and works at the science park.  The busway is great, until she wants to go somewhere else, like round my house.  Result: drives often.

And the last bus is well before the last train.  Final service from London is at 00:04 from King's Cross (on a weekday; there is a later 00:31 on Saturday morning) arriving at 01:25.....but the final bus is at 20:29.  Result: I always* drive to/from the station if there is any chance of arriving back in the evening.  Hopefully the new Chesterton station will relieve these problems for a large part of the city.

* = except last time, when I "accidentally" had a few too many St Austell Tributes from the buffet and ended up walking 3 miles home failing to find a taxi at 02:00 on Saturday morning (my train was delayed, else FGW would've been forking out a PAD-CBG taxi as their service was also delayed).

 

Yes, more options are much needed.   On my course last week, I had a delegate who works on the business park and lives about 20 miles north, near the line between Ely and March.   He could get a train from home that goes to 100 yards from hs place of work ... problem at the moment is that is doesn't stop until it gets to Cambridge Station which is about 3 miles further along the line.    From where he has an awkward ride back on the guide bus though the unguided streets of the city of Cambridge.   Result - he drives.

I know someone who live up near St. Ives who often goes to London.  He could get the guided bus through to the Science park, and carry on with it though the streets of Cambridge and connect there into the train. But the bit through Cambridge is slow. Result - he drives

I often give courses on the science or business parks.  Often I go by train to Cambridge, then a taxi to a hotel (if I have heavy equipment) and another taxi / bus / walk in the morning to where I'm training.  But sometimes I don't like the hassle and drive all the way.

Taking the guided bus though, unguided, to a rail interchange is sensible and gives options.  Adding a station on the main line at the business park give lots more options including people walking to and from that station, and also for regular buses.

 
The new transport options in North Cambridge are much needed.  I live in West Chesterton and see the congestion on a daily basis: long traffic queues on the A14 and buses that are totally full between the station and science park.

At least they've realised a non-guided road is clearly the best option.  I'm still yet to be convinced of the benefits for a guided road vs a bus only road.

 

Surely in that case the new station would be on this St Ives branch line, and actually at the Science Park (which it won't be).

 
Had they built a railway instead of the guided bus way they wouldn't have had to build the road and the trains or tram/trains could have served the new station from it's opening.

But that would have been far too logical!

 

It could be sold to a gullible public as an unguided busway, also availbale for use by other vehicles. What we in Bristol, before the advent of Bust Rabid Transit, called a "road".

 

...and so much more flexible - with no pesky concrete in the way, presumably it would be possible for cars to use it?

 

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Cambridge/PICTURES-First-step-towards-opening-of-Cambridges-second-railway-station-as-work-starts-on-guided-busway-extension-20140723132812.htm?

 

As I recall, the benefits 'sold' over a road were that (a) vehicles could pass each other very closely without slowing down and (b) it insured that a future political regime couldn't open it to regular / normal road traffic.   Benefits sold over a train were that the vehicles could fan out at the end of the tracked section to cover a wide variety of destinations where railway would not be practical.

There's a further link at http://www.britpave.org.uk/GBWhyBuild.ink  which confirms what I recall, and adds in some other reasons ...

 

I think the point of the guidance was so the driver could take it easy, and as a means to prevent accidents.

At least five so far...

 

In the case of Nantes, the Busway being a lower-cost implementation of a tram line was explicit. The passenger numbers predicted didn't support the cost of trams - and this was after there already were three tram lines and they were popular. I don't know whether conversion to trams if numbers justified it was actually envisaged by the planners or not, but people did keep asking why they had to put up with much of the same disruption just for buses. These are big articulated buses, fitted out like trams, with similar road crossings, so it should be possible to increase the service level either with buses or trams.

I guess you didn't really mean "trolleybus", if that was meant to apply to Nantes. 

And as for tram-trains - they should solve problems of limited track capacity in some parts of cities. But the two lines at Nantes don't really do that. One never runs on a road, so it is a light-weight EMU with a mismatched floor level. The other is the same most of the way, but has a few tram-like road crossings.

 
Having used the Cambridge busway a few times now, I fail to see the benefit of it being "guided".  It costs more to build than a road, special buses are required and problems are created when the buses break down.

My opinion is that a bus only road (with rising bollards or similar to prevent unauthorised use) running along the same route would do as a good a job.

 
Do it "cheap", do it twice, they say. Edinburgh (hardly the exemplar) has now "trammed" over its busway. Leeds original guided busway has been abandoned by some of its operators because it is slower than just running buses in the traditional sense parallel to the route, and needs none of the adaptations to the buses. Nantes, BTW, had a huge turn-out to see its third tramline open, so much that the tram could merely inch its way into town. The trolleybus opening was more muted.

Tram-train will save us all.

 
Did you - or the mag - really mean Nantes? Their Busway isn't guided, it just runs mostly on a reserved roadway. And they are building some new, less tram-like, ones (Chronobus). And of course they have three tram lines as well.

 
Even the latest edition of Buses carries a letter pointing how in France the rubber-tyred solutions are not coping on technical and capacity grounds.  I can't quote it all, but Nantes is over capacity and can't increase it without huge expense so is looking at trams and already Caen is converting its equivilent to a busway to a tram system.

Even First's attempt to sabotage the trolley bus scheme in Leeds comes in for criticism.  And this from the champion of bus solutions.

 

You would think they should have learned the lesson about busways by now. And I don't think BAM Nuttall will want anything to do with it until the court case is over.

 
A nice new rail vs busway battle looming on the Haverhill route... - http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/haverhill_multi_million_pound_cambridge_rail_link_could_ease_traffic_problems_on_a1307_1_3463566

 
I had need to travel today on the Cambridge Busway, from near the Science Park to St Ives return.  One way I could get a lift, but I'd need to get the bus back.  Looking at The Busway Website, it looks like it would cost ^6 on Stagecoach or ^5 on Go Whippet.  At this point, I almost chose to drive (32 miles @ 15p per mile = ^4.80).

Anyway, I took the lift there and the bus on the way back.  This is where my moan starts: at the ticket machine at St Ives Park & Ride (you are supposed to buy your ticket before boarding on the guided section and can also pay by card) the first screen you are presented with is choose either "Stagecoach" or "Go Whippet" but no information on who operates which route - not very helpful.  With a bit of time to spare, I played around to find the fares.  My journey would be ^3.90 on Stagecoach or ^3.40 with Go Whippet.  Somewhat different from the website prices.  On the journey several people were turned down from the service C (Go Whippet) as they had purchased Stagecoach tickets.

It makes me wonder how many journeys are not taking place on the busway because people are finding the prices quoted online to be far too high and choose to drive instead, and how many are actually put off because the fares system/ticket machines are too complicated?

 
Nearly time for the start of the big legal battle to start. Should make rich pickings for many lawyers.

 
Perhaps they could rename it the Cambridge guided splashway ....but they had better make sure that none of Stagecoach's competitors have introduced branded greater crested newts to the water in the last couple of months. I am still scrubbing off the Co-op logo from the ones found near the proposed Sainsbury's here in Portishead....

 
How much would that cost? But then money seems to be no problem to get the Cambridge busway.

 



http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/As-closure-of-flood-prone-busway-bridleway-reaches-eighth-week-should-the-track-be-put-on-stilts-20140225063000.htm