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Post by busman on Mar 4, 2024 13:47:48 GMT
Perhaps we need a politics channel on this forum.
As with most other countries, politics and politicians suck. Neither the right nor the left has the monopoly on what is right vs. wrong, good vs. evil etc. Just hold your nose and vote for whoever you most agree with.
As an enthusiast with low tolerance for long waiting times, dirty vehicles, slow journeys etc I’m happy that bus services are finally receiving some attention and investment. I’m dismayed at seeing comments about withdrawing routes when wheels have barely hit the ground. The 269…I’ve driven up and down the SL3 route between Abbey Wood and Bromley a few times. What struck me was how many more buses the SL3 provides along that Sidcup - Bromley corridor. If you’re local, you cannot fail to notice that the SL3 is now the dominant route and it has prominent branding to show people where it goes. In the early evening around 6pm on Saturday it was noticeable how much busier the SL3 was compared to how the 269 used to be. I’ve only observed the SL3 in person since Friday, but it looks to me like the SL3 is already inducing new demand. Whether passengers are ditching rail or car is unclear, but it isn’t all coming from passengers switching from the 160 and 269.
It’s far too early to start talking about withdrawing the 269, similar to how people were talking about withdrawing the B11 when the 301 was launched. The 301 introduced new and more frequent links between important destinations and has massively boosted non-Lizzie line ridership along the route. The B11 is as busy as ever and the 301 is still heaving in the peak hours between Abbey Wood and Bexleyheath. On Friday morning buses in both directions along Brampton Road were packed, with passengers still standing towards Abbey Wood. The B11 has now evolved to providing essential support to the 301 and will probably fulfil the same role for the SL3. Note that the 301 is really well run by DT…it’s just that it’s so popular, the B11 looks fine in its current form. It looks to me like the SL3 is generating similar demand. Chislehurst, Bickley and Sidcup are solid car territories, so there is plenty of scope to induce passenger growth. Let’s wait a while before drawing conclusions and rewriting the bus map in the area. Put your crayons back in the box, or at least play in the correct area of the forum.
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Post by busman on Feb 29, 2024 7:43:22 GMT
What a surprise. Did the councils think that we would just leave our cars at home? LTNs do not encourage people to abandon the car for other forms of transport. They just contribute to standing traffic creating more pollution, more delays and further reduces the appeal of shopping in these areas - which impacts local businesses. End LTNs that have not been voted by people living in the impacted areas. End blanket 20mph speed limits.
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Post by busman on Feb 28, 2024 19:31:56 GMT
Theres a graph on a summary document created by matthieu1221 showing that the decline in relative demand on the parallel routes is proportionally lower than the increase on the SL7. Although I still don't think the slight decrease justifies a cut to any parallel routes I can see alterations rather than out right cuts. Remember that post-Covid there were a lot of frequency cuts. Now that the network is back to 95% of 2019 usage levels, that freed up capacity on parallel routes might come in handy and remove the need to increase frequencies on those routes. Companies are moving away from remote working and are mostly insisting on some level of office presence so the recovery in bus usage looks to be sustainable. The SL7 frequency increase has been an undoubted success. To think there were people on this forum who said it should remain at 2 bph or only increased to 3bph. These metrics demonstrate that providing fast and frequent services attracts new users to the network.
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Post by busman on Feb 28, 2024 11:29:18 GMT
Lots of juicy stuff in the board documents that are out which I'll get to in the other thread tonight, but just this quick update on the first reviews of Superloop implementation:
Concern about capacity on the free Woolwich ferry once the Silvertown Tunnel opens and the associated charging regimes. Investigating whether a charge is needed for ferry .... What a shocker!!! Incompetent w⚓s. Won't be happy until London is completely gridlocked. Poor planet! We asked for a proper road crossing. The local vote in the “consultation” was overwhelmingly in favour. But the mayor decided to replace 3 ferries with 2 very unreliable ones. Two ferries left no resilience breakdowns. Additionally, boarding and docking is much slower than the old boats. They should be talking about buying additional ferries, not placing a charge to the Woolwich ferry. Also the Dartford crossing is supposed to be free by now.
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Post by busman on Feb 28, 2024 10:01:22 GMT
My first peak time run this evening so I missed all the kids thankfully! However, I did pretty much queue from Bromley to Sidcup with only a few brief traffic free bits. I didn’t lose a huge amount of time though and was only a few minutes down at Bexleyheath. The traffic through there and along Long Lane lost me a bunch of time again though and I got an Abbey Wood turn. Despite my leader being not that far in front I picked up a very healthy load at Abbey Wood and again at Bexleyheath. Very few ‘do you stop at’ questions as well It’s a shame there’s so much traffic - I’m not sure the route is sustainable if it’s going to be sitting in so much traffic Bromley to Sidcup has always been a nightmare in the evening rush hour. I used to use the 314 to New Eltham and then the 321 sometimes when coming home from work a few years back as the 269 route would just take so tediously long because of the amount of cars on the road in Bickley/Chislehurst. The SL3 will be held back by it definitely. Traffic issues hold up all forms of transport between Bexleyheath and Bromley. I still think the SL3 will be a success as the faster journey times make it an attractive alternative to a car. Also it opens up new journey possibilities from Thamesmead to Bexleyheath Station without changing buses. Removing the need to change buses alone can save up to 20 minutes on a journey time. No small thing. Family and friends have been using the route daily this week between Thamesmead, Abbey Wood and Sidcup. They have been very impressed so far. The NRMs and USB chargers are going down a treat and journey times between Abbey Wood and Sidcup done in around 30 minutes. Superloop is a game changer for bus travel in South East London.
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Post by busman on Feb 23, 2024 11:14:21 GMT
They must have changed the diversion between Bexleyheath and Blackfen from Crook Log to Hurst Road in Old Bexley/Albany Park, I saw that Tuesday morning. These gas works will definitely make the first month of SL3 operation less than super in terms of speed between Bexleyheath and Sidcup. I suspect the timetable for the SL3 as a result is woefully ambitious. I was really disappointed with my try of the SL5, I suspect I’ll be apocalyptic about the SL3, which is a real shame. Sadly I’m away until next weekend, so I won’t get to ride it but that might be a blessing in disguise. I think it will take a couple of months for the SL3 to settle down. Feb and March is going to be messed up by roadworks in the middle of the route. At least the route is well supported by the 301 and 160 either side of the carnage. Other people in my house will try it out next week for actual journeys so it will be interesting to hear their thoughts. For comfort, sitting on a New Routemaster definitely beats anything out of DT any day of the week. But for speed…initially it might not be much quicker for travel between Abbey Wood and Sidcup.
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Post by busman on Feb 23, 2024 10:02:43 GMT
I drove this afternoon at about 5:30 and it took an hour to get from Sidcup to Bexleyheath, because of the gas works at Penhill Roundabout. They couldn’t launch an express route at a worst time! As well as there being temporary traffic lights on the junction of Sidcup High Street/Carlton Road/Main Road/Station Road. The lights stay red for what feels like an eternity. I expect to see a lot of complaints about the SL3 service in the first few weeks, but it will be nothing to do with the operator or timetable. Those gas works look significant. A huge stretch of Penhill Road southbound is closed completely until the latter part of March which will mean heavier traffic through Hurst Road approaching Penhill Roundabout. Blendon Road is closed in the same direction as well..perhaps that’s why I saw a 132 towards North Greenwich heading past Crook Log on Saturday. It might be a good opportunity to snap some Abbey Wood, Bexleyheath and Sidcup Station curtailments.
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Post by busman on Feb 22, 2024 11:46:39 GMT
So much for local democracy. I hope the council wins and other London boroughs follow. Next target - blanket 20mph speed limits.
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Post by busman on Feb 21, 2024 15:41:33 GMT
The SL3 tile has indeed been installed at the Hatherley Crescent/Sidcup Station stop towards Bromley. Oh dear. No Hurst Road zoominess for the SL3 then. Not fun being stuck on Hurst Road turning into Foots Cray Lane in the morning school run and the reverse direction in the afternoon. Also as others have said, the lights at Hatherley Crescent are a nightmare. I’ve made the mistake of going that way once or twice before…never again.
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Post by busman on Feb 21, 2024 15:05:44 GMT
This article shows what is wrong with British politics and the mindset of the media. There is absolutely nothing wrong in changing your mind if you see you were wrong about something in the first place. The real question is why do parties create policies without properly thinking through the implementation and impact on other policies, budgets and areas of unintended consequence? This is what happens when we have a group of election wonks advising politicians what to say in order to get people to vote for them. Detail and critical thinking doesn’t matter anymore. Just get people to vote for you and worry about the detail later. So here, we see a daft back of a napkin „policy“ ditched and the headline is about u-turns rather than a party not taking governance seriously. This is a problem across all parties and it’s a sad state of affairs right now. But anything has to be better than the Tories. They have decimated the country in 13 years by implementing stupid policies and only thinking about the consequences afterwards. Will Labour be any different? Sadly not, but like I said they can’t be any worse. This quote from that BBC article said it all: „A phrase first uttered into my ear at the Labour Conference last autumn. "We need to be the smallest possible moving target".“ Basically, Labour will say what they need to say in order for people to vote for them. That’s why Starmer is accused of standing for nothing and being wishy-washy. The country is in such a mess it needs a cohesive plan to rebuild it. Education, Business, Healthcare, Taxation, Law & Justice, Housing, Immigration, Environment etc cannot work in silos. Their policies have to work in harmony. We need a leader of the magnitude of Lee Kuan Yew to rebuild this country and realise our tremendous potential, but no such person exists in British politics nor will the individualistic electorate and click-baity media tolerate such a figure.
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Post by busman on Feb 20, 2024 19:15:41 GMT
I suspect it may be less 'loopy' My money is on the 112/232 corridor getting an 'SL11' - I think there's other places where there would be space for an orbital express bus. I think the South Circular corridor could do with some faster and more direct bus links. I’d personally like ‘spokes’ coming from significant places immediately outside London heading for the first significant place inside London, but appreciate that the likelihood is small and that county councils will likely need to help out. A “hub and spoke” model is something that the London Assembly have talked about in the past. The hub being a rail station or other significant place of interchange and buses providing the “spokes”. Given that an inner ring is already formed by the London Overground, I wonder if we will see equivalents of the SL4, SL6 and SL8 proposed in other parts of London connecting to the newly named LO routes and Superloop outer orbitals, rather than more “loopy” routes.
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Post by busman on Feb 20, 2024 12:56:30 GMT
The SL3 and Superloop logo bus stop tiles have been installed in Sidcup. Have the Sidcup Station stops on Hatherley Road been tiled or have they gone with Station Road instead? I’m really surprised that Hatherley Road was the planned stop because running via Hurst Road is faster at most times of the day vs. Faraday Avenue and Foots Cray Lane.
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Post by busman on Feb 15, 2024 17:07:38 GMT
£6.3million of taxpayer money wasted on virtue signalling nonsense. Vote this guy out already. Here‘s an idea: LO1 LO2 LO3 LO4 LO5 LO6
No drama, does the job.
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Post by busman on Feb 6, 2024 17:27:01 GMT
Whilst I do think Thamesmead needs a station, I'm not convinced the DLR is the right way to go. Probably in the minority but I'd rather the extra money was poured into an Overground extension for all the extra links that will come which would open many possibilities. Also, I don't think the 15 minute frequency should be a barrier - I'm a bit miffed why it's bad for Thamesmead but ok for many areas which may only see a 30 minute frequency or less on there respective line. Or go the whole hog and stick both options in - obviously it won't happen (mainly because this country likes doing everything on the cheap, not even confirming they will safeguard a route for any further extension from Thamesmead) but I'm not sure one or the other will have the desired impact they think. I personally think extending the Hammersmith and City line would’ve been the best option by far, but this country is too behind to ever make that a reality. Completely agree with both these comments. London Overground would open up far better links than the Beckton branch of the DLR. From Thamesmead, the DLR is easily accessible via the Elizabeth line to Custom House from Abbey Wood and the DLR from Woolwich. The issue with extending the LO is that it would be a victim of its own success. Direct links to Barking and North London would see people travelling into Thamesmead to make those unique journeys. Sadly a 15 minute frequency would see trains rammed before they reached Barking Riverside. I think it is short sighted not to build a road tunnel next to the DLR tunnel for buses and emergency vehicles. That would potentially open up north-south crossings to a variety of destinations whilst appeasing nimbys here who prefer a non-functional ferry crossing to a proper road link. As for the rapid bus gimmick nonsense, as I’ve said elsewhere on this forum it’s a waste of money and totally unnecessary. This talk has been going on since before the creation of the 472. All they need to do is extend the SL3 one stop to Woolwich. Job done. If Peabody stop land banking and actually build stuff quickly around here, routes like the 301 and 472 could have enhanced frequencies. It doesn’t require anything fancy and bus prioritisation is excellent between Thamesmead and Woolwich apart from some issues accessing the eastbound bus lane after the junction with Burrage Road. Hopefully they build the station at Thamesmead with future ability to accommodate the LO as well as a future extension.
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Post by busman on Feb 1, 2024 10:47:33 GMT
Don’t like it one bit, for the reasons everyone else has stated. Given that this change is linked to the Silvertown tunnel opening, why not have one of the new Silvertown routes serve Tunnel Avenue in both directions? I wonder if it’s worth considering splitting the 188 into two services - half going via current route as 188, and resurrecting the 168 number for the half going via Tunnel Avenue? Unless there was data to support splitting the 188, it is fine as it is. In fact the new route to Tottenham Court Road is actually a handier terminus from this area than Russell Square. If there was no possibility of introducing a new route through the new tunnel (as TfL seemed to have forgotten about earlier plans which had more buses and more routes), I would look at diverting the 161 down the whole stretch of Tunnel Avenue from East Greenwich library all the way into North Greenwich station. At the southern end, buses can access Tunnel Avenue via Dunham Street as buses curtailed at East Greenwich currently do anyway. I think it is definitely an option. The 161 pretty much empties out at Woolwich and is almost like two routes, plus the 180 and 472 still provides links to the IKEA area and beyond. Most of the stops (2 out of 3) in Charlton where the 161 is the only link to and from IKEA are within easy reach of the 180, 472 or 486. The stop with the biggest inconvenience would be the Rainton Road stops. Passengers using the 161 between Rainton Road and stops before North Greenwich Station would have journeys broken - but - there would be a common interchange stop (Tunnel Avenue) in both directions with the 108, 188 and 422 on Blackwall Lane. For short hop journeys to the IKEA area, passengers can take a bus one stop to East Greenwich (Kemsing Road) and change for the 129. Obviously this is just a suggestion based on my observations as a local, but TfL will have data to quantify how many people would be negatively impacted by such a change vs. how many people would benefit from such a change. It at least gets people from Woolwich to Meantime brewery quicker than a 422 ;-)
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