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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Mar 5, 2019 18:38:39 GMT
Pretty much my view of it. Having seen the monstrous mess that is being made of Tottenham Court Rd (the road, not the station) today then I wonder whether we really need months and months more of disruption. Whoever has got shares in highway construction firms and aggregate / paving suppliers must be earning a fortune off the back of TfL funded work. Every single northbound bus stop on TCR was closed with dolly stops replacing all bar one of them but at some distance from their original locations. Can't be much fun for drivers or regular passengers. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the long run. Issue is that it's only worth breaking the eggs if the omelette is good... Stratford for example is a complete wreck now. Queues stretch for miles during the peaks and are all entered around the junction of Romford Road or the junction at Stratford High Street. It's not created a more pleasant atmosphere at all, and arguably its more dangerous with the interesting moves buses pull off so they can get through the lights. There was nothing wrong with TCR in the first place so why they're doing all this nonsense is beyond me.
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Post by ronnie on Mar 5, 2019 18:42:41 GMT
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the long run. Issue is that it's only worth breaking the eggs if the omelette is good... Stratford for example is a complete wreck now. Queues stretch for miles during the peaks and are all entered around the junction of Romford Road or the junction at Stratford High Street. It's not created a more pleasant atmosphere at all, and arguably its more dangerous with the interesting moves buses pull off so they can get through the lights. There was nothing wrong with TCR in the first place so why they're doing all this nonsense is beyond me. Agree. That one is quite bad. Worse is Aldgate - in peaks it’s so slow nowadays from Aldgate East to Liverpool Street that it’s just faster to walk. At least previously traffic used to flow - nowadays I don’t bother using the 135 in peak morning as it’s just painfully slow
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Post by sid on Mar 5, 2019 18:59:35 GMT
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the long run. Issue is that it's only worth breaking the eggs if the omelette is good... Stratford for example is a complete wreck now. Queues stretch for miles during the peaks and are all entered around the junction of Romford Road or the junction at Stratford High Street. It's not created a more pleasant atmosphere at all, and arguably its more dangerous with the interesting moves buses pull off so they can get through the lights. There was nothing wrong with TCR in the first place so why they're doing all this nonsense is beyond me. Presumably southbound buses will serve TCR which is far more useful than Gower Street? One way systems have had their day, most of them serve no useful purpose at all. The Baker Street change seems to be working ok apart from the shambles over the bus stops.
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Post by vjaska on Mar 5, 2019 20:38:07 GMT
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the long run. Issue is that it's only worth breaking the eggs if the omelette is good... Stratford for example is a complete wreck now. Queues stretch for miles during the peaks and are all entered around the junction of Romford Road or the junction at Stratford High Street. It's not created a more pleasant atmosphere at all, and arguably its more dangerous with the interesting moves buses pull off so they can get through the lights. There was nothing wrong with TCR in the first place so why they're doing all this nonsense is beyond me. This is what happens when decent road systems are messed with - I had to use Stratford for the first time since the changes and I’m unimpressed with the 158’s alighting point and where people are chucked out at. Traffic was also snaking back along Angel Lane with poor traffic light phasing. Having two way traffic everywhere just asks for more collisions giving people don’t know how to cross especially when factoring in cyclists and their love for passing through red lights. All this wasted money could of been put to better use - what about the many roads & pavements which are in a poor state for example?
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Post by snoggle on Mar 5, 2019 22:28:16 GMT
Issue is that it's only worth breaking the eggs if the omelette is good... Stratford for example is a complete wreck now. Queues stretch for miles during the peaks and are all entered around the junction of Romford Road or the junction at Stratford High Street. It's not created a more pleasant atmosphere at all, and arguably its more dangerous with the interesting moves buses pull off so they can get through the lights. There was nothing wrong with TCR in the first place so why they're doing all this nonsense is beyond me. Interesting. I've not seen Stratford in the peaks since the changes were implemented but was wondering how it worked in the peaks. Badly it would seem. I have been there twice in the off peak. The 158's final stop is a bit bizarre - you're sort of marooned between the road and a two way cycle lane. Finding the pavement requires too much effort. The revised operation of the bus station also seems a bit odd as is the revised junction at its exit on the main highway system. The loss of conveninent stops, for those on the Broadway, also seems a retrograde step for bus passengers. Far too often these schemes leave people with awkward and unpopular multiple crossings of busy roads. The revised Walthamstow arrangement is like this. I suspect Tottenham Court Road will be similar as will the proposals for Holborn.
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Post by vjaska on Mar 10, 2019 2:11:03 GMT
Used the new road system by Baker Street and honestly, there is no benefit to what they've done. Traffic speed hasn't increased as my journey was marginally slower than when it was one way & endless traffic lights still slow traffic down into blocks like it's Manhattan rather than maintaining flow (they couldn't even bothered to resurface all the affected roads) - what a waste of money!
Passengers using the 30 are currently having a much slower journey due to it's current routing involving crossing Portman Square from Baker Street to Gloucester Place before reaching Oxford Street.
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Post by sid on Mar 10, 2019 7:10:23 GMT
Used the new road system by Baker Street and honestly, there is no benefit to what they've done. Traffic speed hasn't increased as my journey was marginally slower than when it was one way & endless traffic lights still slow traffic down into blocks like it's Manhattan rather than maintaining flow (they couldn't even bothered to resurface all the affected roads) - what a waste of money! Passengers using the 30 are currently having a much slower journey due to it's current routing involving crossing Portman Square from Baker Street to Gloucester Place before reaching Oxford Street. The Baker Street changes seem like a vast improvement to me and one of the stewards in high viz's that I spoke to said reaction has generally been favourable. Increasing traffic speed wasn't the intention. The only downside has been the shambolic implementation of bus stop changes. Surely the 30 is quicker crossing Portman Square en route to Marble Arch? It goes that way to avoid congestion near Selfridges as it will only be setting down.
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Post by vjaska on Mar 10, 2019 12:08:39 GMT
Used the new road system by Baker Street and honestly, there is no benefit to what they've done. Traffic speed hasn't increased as my journey was marginally slower than when it was one way & endless traffic lights still slow traffic down into blocks like it's Manhattan rather than maintaining flow (they couldn't even bothered to resurface all the affected roads) - what a waste of money! Passengers using the 30 are currently having a much slower journey due to it's current routing involving crossing Portman Square from Baker Street to Gloucester Place before reaching Oxford Street. The Baker Street changes seem like a vast improvement to me and one of the stewards in high viz's that I spoke to said reaction has generally been favourable. Increasing traffic speed wasn't the intention. The only downside has been the shambolic implementation of bus stop changes. Surely the 30 is quicker crossing Portman Square en route to Marble Arch? It goes that way to avoid congestion near Selfridges as it will only be setting down. The 30 has to traverse through shorter signal phasings by going that way - we managed to beat it to Marble Arch despite being on a 2 that was at a red light whilst it ran through Portman Square, then had to serve Selfridges and not forgetting we were not a terminating route unlike the 30.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2019 16:32:32 GMT
Used the new road system by Baker Street and honestly, there is no benefit to what they've done. Traffic speed hasn't increased as my journey was marginally slower than when it was one way & endless traffic lights still slow traffic down into blocks like it's Manhattan rather than maintaining flow (they couldn't even bothered to resurface all the affected roads) - what a waste of money! Passengers using the 30 are currently having a much slower journey due to it's current routing involving crossing Portman Square from Baker Street to Gloucester Place before reaching Oxford Street. The Baker Street changes seem like a vast improvement to me and one of the stewards in high viz's that I spoke to said reaction has generally been favourable. Increasing traffic speed wasn't the intention. The only downside has been the shambolic implementation of bus stop changes. Surely the 30 is quicker crossing Portman Square en route to Marble Arch? It goes that way to avoid congestion near Selfridges as it will only be setting down. It doesn't appear to be the all doom and gloom that was predicted, however I wouldn't use the term "vast improvement"
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2019 16:35:03 GMT
I think that would scupper any new link. I also think I'm generally in favour of the idea behind this one, but I still really cannot escape the view that the British Museum needs still be served by a Red London Bus.
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Post by redbus on Mar 14, 2019 22:13:09 GMT
Used the new road system by Baker Street and honestly, there is no benefit to what they've done. Traffic speed hasn't increased as my journey was marginally slower than when it was one way & endless traffic lights still slow traffic down into blocks like it's Manhattan rather than maintaining flow (they couldn't even bothered to resurface all the affected roads) - what a waste of money! Passengers using the 30 are currently having a much slower journey due to it's current routing involving crossing Portman Square from Baker Street to Gloucester Place before reaching Oxford Street. The Baker Street changes seem like a vast improvement to me and one of the stewards in high viz's that I spoke to said reaction has generally been favourable. Increasing traffic speed wasn't the intention. The only downside has been the shambolic implementation of bus stop changes. Surely the 30 is quicker crossing Portman Square en route to Marble Arch? It goes that way to avoid congestion near Selfridges as it will only be setting down. It's certainly not all doom and gloom, but it is far from a huge success either!
Baker Street / Gloucester Place certainly looks better, but that's due to the new paving etc, which could easily have been done anyway and has no dependency upon making the streets two-way.
The traffic is thankfully not yet back to normal levels, but even so there are jams. If traffic never returns to it's previous level and hasn't been displaced elsewhere, then the scheme will have an important success. If traffic is displaced that could have just transferred the problem elsewhere, not a great result. If the traffic returns, then the jams may well be worse and the scheme certainly won't be a success. In this respect it is early days, and it is quite usual for the traffic to be subdued for a fair time after such works.
From a pedestrian perspective all the junctions are full with 'green man' pedestrian signals, so if you happy to wait for the 'green man', it is an improvement. The problem is most people don't wait for the 'green man', and just cross when it is clear, in which case matters are significantly worse as you have two directions to worry about when crossing, and far fewer opportunities when it is clear to cross.
I did to speak to quite a few Stewards and the reaction to the scheme has been very mixed depending upon who you speak to. I discussed a number of junctions and it does seem that some of the junctions are intrinsically more dangerous than before, simply because of the two way layout and number of different possible movements. I shall watch with interest the accident figures once everything settles down and the Stewards are gone, I really hope there will be no increase in accidents.
I can't see how it's much of an improvement for cyclists as they have to share with two-way traffic and many parking bays, but perhaps cyclists think it is better. I would have thought if the roads were kept one way, there would have been enough room for both a bus and cycle lane as well as the traffic, and that would have been a better solution for cyclists. Unfortunately that is not a fashionable solution, so won't get a look in!
From a general traffic perspective it is now slower due to the phasing of the traffic lights, assuming there are no jams. General traffic on the other hand has the benefit of having had the bus lanes removed, by and large. Here I think here the jury is out until we see at what level traffic settles at.
Now moving onto buses, after all that is what this forum is for. Leaving aside the bus stop fiasco which still continues and is worthy of it's own post, the scheme can only be described as a miserable failure for buses. Journey times have increased even when there is little traffic due to terrible light phasing. Turning right from Oxford Street into Orchard Street is much slower than turning right into Portman Street ever used to be. One is regularly left having to wait for several phases of the lights to turn right, delaying the 113 and 139. The bus lanes have largely been removed and this is significantly slowing down buses when the traffic is bad. Some routes are two way on Baker Street, while others remain southbound on Baker Street and Northbound on Gloucester Place. This can't be right now the roads are two way, a bus route should either use Baker Street or Gloucester Place, not a combination according to direction of travel.
Overall it is a big disappointment to me and the scheme needs significant revision, but then with my hat on as a bus user, there's no other conclusion I can come to. It is another example how buses are pretty close to the bottom of the priority list these days.
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Post by Volvo on Mar 14, 2019 22:34:30 GMT
Great and I have been told as I am remaining a spare I have to learn the 139 and it's things like this as to why I wanted to avoid the route.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2019 23:18:59 GMT
Great and I have been told as I am remaining a spare I have to learn the 139 and it's things like this as to why I wanted to avoid the route. The H12 and 258 would be my favourites at BT.
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Post by redbus on Mar 15, 2019 0:19:56 GMT
Great and I have been told as I am remaining a spare I have to learn the 139 and it's things like this as to why I wanted to avoid the route. In which case if you ever do go on the 139 you may get the dubious pleasure of coming across me as a passenger!
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Post by sid on Mar 15, 2019 9:08:59 GMT
The Baker Street changes seem like a vast improvement to me and one of the stewards in high viz's that I spoke to said reaction has generally been favourable. Increasing traffic speed wasn't the intention. The only downside has been the shambolic implementation of bus stop changes. Surely the 30 is quicker crossing Portman Square en route to Marble Arch? It goes that way to avoid congestion near Selfridges as it will only be setting down. It doesn't appear to be the all doom and gloom that was predicted, however I wouldn't use the term "vast improvement" I think a lot of drivers still use it the same way, ie Gloucester Place northbound and Baker Street southbound. The big improvement is drivers can now go directly to where they want to get to rather than having to detour because of the one way system and no more race track conditions to encourage boy racers.
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