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Post by wirewiper on Sept 2, 2018 8:39:21 GMT
I don't know if this was discussed elsewhere but TFL had plenty of time to update the bus priority lane at Capitol Way in Colindale. How can they even go ahead with the merger of the 303/305?!?! They had to. Simply cancelling the changes might sound like an easy solution, but it is anything but - especially when they coincide with a new contract and a change of operator. The contract for the revised 303 was awarded several months ago, to a new operator, which has spent months planning and organising vehicle allocations and recruiting staff on the basis that the change will happen on a certain date. Also the outgoing operator has also been managing their fleet and staffing levels on the basis that they will no longer operate the route after a certain date, and have even closed the garage which operated the routes, so can't simply be told the day before "Oh the change isn't happening now, you still have to run the buses". Is having a temporary diversion and timetable for a few weeks really such a bad thing? It's a hell of a lot easier to implement. |
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Post by BusesInLondon on Sept 2, 2018 8:46:06 GMT
I don't know if this was discussed elsewhere but TFL had plenty of time to update the bus priority lane at Capitol Way in Colindale. How can they even go ahead with the merger of the 303/305?!?! They had to. Simply cancelling the changes might sound like an easy solution, but it is anything but - especially when they coincide with a new contract and a change of operator. The contract for the revised 303 was awarded several months ago, to a new operator, which has spent months planning and organising vehicle allocations and recruiting staff on the basis that the change will happen on a certain date. Also the outgoing operator has also been managing their fleet and staffing levels on the basis that they will no longer operate the route after a certain date, and have even closed the garage which operated the routes, so can't simply be told the day before "Oh the change isn't happening now, you still have to run the buses". Is having a temporary diversion and timetable for a few weeks really such a bad thing? It's a hell of a lot easier to implement. Knowing TFL, it may take much more than a month! |
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Post by snoggle on Sept 2, 2018 10:31:55 GMT
I don't know if this was discussed elsewhere but TFL had plenty of time to update the bus priority lane at Capitol Way in Colindale. How can they even go ahead with the merger of the 303/305?!?! To be fair it is not TfL's responsibility as they are not the highway authority. IIRC it is Brent Council who are responsible for that section of Capitol Way so they will have to find the money and contract the work. No one should be shocked that it is not ready on time - highway works are very rarely done on time where they are needed for bus changes. We have the same issue, but with Barnet Council, in respect of the 125 extension and possibly in the Graeme Park area if issues materialise with the new buses for the 303. TfL did identify the Capitol Way issues in the consultation documentation so it is not a case of not knowing - they clearly did and I assume they have had the requisite discussions with Brent Council. It is now a case of "doing". |
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Post by cl54 on Sept 2, 2018 19:14:02 GMT
Greenwich Council are taking longer than a month to implement pedestrian improvements at the Woolwich New Road junction.
Lots of buses diverted via Vincent Road and Burrage Road.
Could add significantly to journey times from 3rd September.
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Post by redbus on Sept 2, 2018 21:04:10 GMT
I don't know if this was discussed elsewhere but TFL had plenty of time to update the bus priority lane at Capitol Way in Colindale. How can they even go ahead with the merger of the 303/305?!?! To be fair it is not TfL's responsibility as they are not the highway authority. IIRC it is Brent Council who are responsible for that section of Capitol Way so they will have to find the money and contract the work. No one should be shocked that it is not ready on time - highway works are very rarely done on time where they are needed for bus changes. We have the same issue, but with Barnet Council, in respect of the 125 extension and possibly in the Graeme Park area if issues materialise with the new buses for the 303. TfL did identify the Capitol Way issues in the consultation documentation so it is not a case of not knowing - they clearly did and I assume they have had the requisite discussions with Brent Council. It is now a case of "doing". At the end of the day the bus passenger isn't interested whose fault it is, they just wanted it sorted! TfL know how long it can take to get recalcitrant council to undertake the necessary highway works. As such they need to be absolutely sure highway works will be complete before scheduling changes, particularly given they can't just not do the changes at the last minute. Maybe it is my imagination but I don't recollect seeing this type of problem in past years, but now we have this and the 274 fiasco. |
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Post by busaholic on Sept 2, 2018 22:03:06 GMT
To be fair it is not TfL's responsibility as they are not the highway authority. IIRC it is Brent Council who are responsible for that section of Capitol Way so they will have to find the money and contract the work. No one should be shocked that it is not ready on time - highway works are very rarely done on time where they are needed for bus changes. We have the same issue, but with Barnet Council, in respect of the 125 extension and possibly in the Graeme Park area if issues materialise with the new buses for the 303. TfL did identify the Capitol Way issues in the consultation documentation so it is not a case of not knowing - they clearly did and I assume they have had the requisite discussions with Brent Council. It is now a case of "doing". At the end of the day the bus passenger isn't interested whose fault it is, they just wanted it sorted! TfL know how long it can take to get recalcitrant council to undertake the necessary highway works. As such they need to be absolutely sure highway works will be complete before scheduling changes, particularly given they can't just not do the changes at the last minute. Maybe it is my imagination but I don't recollect seeing this type of problem in past years, but now we have this and the 274 fiasco. I can only speak for the early 1970s period, when LT had a special section dealing with bus stops, with seven people working there: I was one of them for a few months, my area being west London. There was a lot of bureaucracy, but every t was crossed and i dotted. The police got consulted on every bus stop move, the local authority were very involved of course and everything had to be co-ordinated. It was the same with roadworks, LT had to be consulted because closure of bus stops, even for a temporary period, was taken much more seriously then and alternative stopping places, in the form of 'dollies', almost always had to be provided, rightly so in my opinion. |
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Post by snoggle on Sept 2, 2018 23:33:18 GMT
At the end of the day the bus passenger isn't interested whose fault it is, they just wanted it sorted! TfL know how long it can take to get recalcitrant council to undertake the necessary highway works. As such they need to be absolutely sure highway works will be complete before scheduling changes, particularly given they can't just not do the changes at the last minute. Maybe it is my imagination but I don't recollect seeing this type of problem in past years, but now we have this and the 274 fiasco. I obviously take your point *but* who knows what is involved? Don't all highway changes require a period of public notice display and time for response and review? I suspect there may also be issues about providing some sort of enforcement camera for the new bus "gate" and that will bring with it all sorts of issues like power supplies, data links etc. There may also be land issues given I suspect the road will have to be widened slightly to maintain car lanes and footpaths either side of the wider bus gate. As I suspect the retail park and car parks are not public land that will require further negotiation, payments, co-ordination etc. All I'm trying to say is that with the best will in the world TfL could have allowed a year for this and it could still be late. As it is I suspect the consultation took longer to conclude and close out and TfL probably had to have about 20 budget reviews to make sure they could still afford to implement the Colindale area changes. None of that will have helped whatever negotiation process has gone on with Brent Council in respect of implementing the changes. Just to give a different example I was the client for installing ticket gates at Uxbridge LU station. As you will know it is a listed station so we had to get permission from the local council. Unfortunately for us there was another LU project seeking to install CCTV in the station. The local authority conservation officer had ZERO issue with the ticket gate project but had enormous issues with the CCTV project. He therefore blocked our project as "leverage" against the CCTV project. You can argue whether this was right or wrong but he held the power and delayed the completion of my project by a year. I had to go back to the approval body for revised authority, write all sorts of reports explaining the issues etc. In the end we had to flex the technical standards to allow some of the CCTV cabling to share our underfloor cable ducting in order to solve the problem as the conservation officer refused to allow additional metal trunking to be fixed to the concrete structure of Uxbridge Station. I had zero expectation that we would ever get caught up in that sort of issue but there you go. We'd got through umpteen heritage approvals at other sites with little difficulty. I could regale you with problems of where the sh*t from old BR train toilets fell through the structure of Waterloo station and ended up causing problems for LU assets or the labyrinthine lease provisions at North Greenwich bus station which meant it took forever to fix a leaking roof. However I won't bore the forum to death with all that.  Real life can be a complex mess sometimes and cause problems no one could reasonably foresee. That's why I struggle somewhat with the expectations of perfection (and yes I'm sometimes guilty of that) that we see so often on forums like this. |
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Post by redbus on Sept 3, 2018 22:25:00 GMT
At the end of the day the bus passenger isn't interested whose fault it is, they just wanted it sorted! TfL know how long it can take to get recalcitrant council to undertake the necessary highway works. As such they need to be absolutely sure highway works will be complete before scheduling changes, particularly given they can't just not do the changes at the last minute. Maybe it is my imagination but I don't recollect seeing this type of problem in past years, but now we have this and the 274 fiasco. I obviously take your point *but* who knows what is involved? Don't all highway changes require a period of public notice display and time for response and review? I suspect there may also be issues about providing some sort of enforcement camera for the new bus "gate" and that will bring with it all sorts of issues like power supplies, data links etc. There may also be land issues given I suspect the road will have to be widened slightly to maintain car lanes and footpaths either side of the wider bus gate. As I suspect the retail park and car parks are not public land that will require further negotiation, payments, co-ordination etc. All I'm trying to say is that with the best will in the world TfL could have allowed a year for this and it could still be late. As it is I suspect the consultation took longer to conclude and close out and TfL probably had to have about 20 budget reviews to make sure they could still afford to implement the Colindale area changes. None of that will have helped whatever negotiation process has gone on with Brent Council in respect of implementing the changes. Just to give a different example I was the client for installing ticket gates at Uxbridge LU station. As you will know it is a listed station so we had to get permission from the local council. Unfortunately for us there was another LU project seeking to install CCTV in the station. The local authority conservation officer had ZERO issue with the ticket gate project but had enormous issues with the CCTV project. He therefore blocked our project as "leverage" against the CCTV project. You can argue whether this was right or wrong but he held the power and delayed the completion of my project by a year. I had to go back to the approval body for revised authority, write all sorts of reports explaining the issues etc. In the end we had to flex the technical standards to allow some of the CCTV cabling to share our underfloor cable ducting in order to solve the problem as the conservation officer refused to allow additional metal trunking to be fixed to the concrete structure of Uxbridge Station. I had zero expectation that we would ever get caught up in that sort of issue but there you go. We'd got through umpteen heritage approvals at other sites with little difficulty. I could regale you with problems of where the sh*t from old BR train toilets fell through the structure of Waterloo station and ended up causing problems for LU assets or the labyrinthine lease provisions at North Greenwich bus station which meant it took forever to fix a leaking roof. However I won't bore the forum to death with all that. Real life can be a complex mess sometimes and cause problems no one could reasonably foresee. That's why I struggle somewhat with the expectations of perfection (and yes I'm sometimes guilty of that) that we see so often on forums like this. I understand. In life &*%& happens, things go wrong, but it's all about how you recover when things do go wrong. Perhaps a bit more flexibility is needed when agreeing contracts to try and better protect the poor passenger. I accept that from time to time with the best will in the world things like this happen, it just that it now appears to be more frequent then it used to be.
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Post by SILENCED on Sept 5, 2018 13:11:36 GMT
I don’t think there’s much in it between Halifax and Huddersfield. Nice part of the world. Zubin : for starters, if you want a decent bus ride, try the 184 over the Pennines to Manchester, or one of the routes down to Holmfirth. Oh and dont be expecting to see much new stuff in the Hudd or the Fax. First Huddersfield newest decker is 58-reg, and only the one, and First Halifax even worse, newest decker is 06-reg. Both garages have small allocation of 2015 Streetlites and 13-reg B7RLEs Wow, just seen a report that 4 09-reg B9TLs have transferred from Leeds to Halifax ... wonder what they will use this modern kit on 😂😂😂 guessing the 503 |
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Post by cl54 on Sept 5, 2018 14:13:11 GMT
My journey to work currently means getting the third bus of the day on the 386 towards Blackheath Village.
The driver this week has run 2 minutes early every day so far this week.
Whilst 2 minutes early is acceptable to TfL to allow for varying traffic conditions I find his attitude annoying.
Early morning passengers want to get to work not miss an early running bus.
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Post by sid on Sept 5, 2018 14:40:11 GMT
My journey to work currently means getting the third bus of the day on the 386 towards Blackheath Village. The driver this week has run 2 minutes early every day so far this week. Whilst 2 minutes early is acceptable to TfL to allow for varying traffic conditions I find his attitude annoying. Early morning passengers want to get to work not miss an early running bus. I agree, I think even running one minute early on a low frequency is unacceptable and I can't understand why TfL think otherwise? |
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Post by Hassaan on Sept 5, 2018 14:57:35 GMT
My journey to work currently means getting the third bus of the day on the 386 towards Blackheath Village. The driver this week has run 2 minutes early every day so far this week. Whilst 2 minutes early is acceptable to TfL to allow for varying traffic conditions I find his attitude annoying. Early morning passengers want to get to work not miss an early running bus. And there is probably a good chance the driver departed early from the beginning I have a similar issue with Metroline on the 120 in the evenings when the route is every 15 minutes. Leaving the first stop early should just not happen, we passengers don't care if the timetable is too tight further down the route. On Saturday the 2305 from Northolt departed 3 minutes early, which is bad enough, but when his leader was 3 minutes late at the time (and continued to lose time). Luckily the guy got regulated for 2 minutes and then lost another minute, so I didn't miss the bus at Southall Station as it was on time. Even earlier in the day many of the drivers seem to depart whenever they want, although as it is a high frequency route I can live with it around that time. London United drivers almost never departed more than a few seconds early. |
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Post by MoEnviro on Sept 5, 2018 15:41:57 GMT
My journey to work currently means getting the third bus of the day on the 386 towards Blackheath Village. The driver this week has run 2 minutes early every day so far this week. Whilst 2 minutes early is acceptable to TfL to allow for varying traffic conditions I find his attitude annoying. Early morning passengers want to get to work not miss an early running bus. And there is probably a good chance the driver departed early from the beginning I have a similar issue with Metroline on the 120 in the evenings when the route is every 15 minutes. Leaving the first stop early should just not happen, we passengers don't care if the timetable is too tight further down the route. On Saturday the 2305 from Northolt departed 3 minutes early, which is bad enough, but when his leader was 3 minutes late at the time (and continued to lose time). Luckily the guy got regulated for 2 minutes and then lost another minute, so I didn't miss the bus at Southall Station as it was on time. Even earlier in the day many of the drivers seem to depart whenever they want, although as it is a high frequency route I can live with it around that time. London United drivers almost never departed more than a few seconds early. Sounds like the drivers need to be reminded to use duty card in the evening when running every 15mins. I believe Stagecoach had to do something similar recently. The 386 is slightly different in that it’s a low frequency route as early running is likely to have a greater impact. |
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Post by snoggle on Sept 5, 2018 16:26:00 GMT
My journey to work currently means getting the third bus of the day on the 386 towards Blackheath Village. The driver this week has run 2 minutes early every day so far this week. Whilst 2 minutes early is acceptable to TfL to allow for varying traffic conditions I find his attitude annoying. Early morning passengers want to get to work not miss an early running bus. I used to hate this when I used to get early morning buses. Even 1 or 2 mins make a difference as you say. It's as if some drivers don't think that people travelling that early in the day don't know the precise times when buses are due - they *do* know. |
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Post by busaholic on Sept 5, 2018 16:44:59 GMT
My journey to work currently means getting the third bus of the day on the 386 towards Blackheath Village. The driver this week has run 2 minutes early every day so far this week. Whilst 2 minutes early is acceptable to TfL to allow for varying traffic conditions I find his attitude annoying. Early morning passengers want to get to work not miss an early running bus. In areas where the Traffic Commissioner's writ applies, more than one minute early at a timing point is unacceptable: the most senior of the TCs has let it be known he considers even that should not be allowed, and intends to change the rules. TfL's stance is therefore at variance and, imo, regressive and passenger-unfriendly. |
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Real life can be a complex mess sometimes and cause problems no one could reasonably foresee. That's why I struggle somewhat with the expectations of perfection (and yes I'm sometimes guilty of that) that we see so often on forums like this.
