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Post by vjaska on Aug 24, 2013 1:44:17 GMT
Seeing as I live in islington and I drive through these B.S 20mph zones everyday, I can tell you for one they are not safe thats a start because everyone and their mother and pet starts tailgating eachother to make the person infront drive faster and if that doesnt work then the overtake dangerously and speed off anyway. This 20mph bull has nearly caused so much accidents just in the last two weeks alone. 20 just makes people impatient especially when they put it on wide clear roads its a joke, if it was 30 people would appreciate it trust me, when it was 30 I can't even recall that many people speeding atall now its 20, I see it everytime I am out. I even read that the police didn't agree with the 20mph limits on main roads and deemed it dangerous. I have been driving on some seriously narrow roads around london that probably should be a 20 but are a 30, yet islington has these nice wide roads where you have a clear view of what is coming and the people on the pavements etc and they make the speed limits 20! I now try to avoid the 20mph main roads as possible as all I get is van drivers and other tools tailgating me to a point where I have to keep checking my rear view mirror to make sure that if i even do brake normally that they dont end up running in the back of my car, especially as I have my duaghter in the back. 3 days ago down essex road a transit driver tailgated me all the way from islington angel and as we got nearer newington green, he decided he had enough and overtook forcing the oncoming 73 to suddenly brake, when i cuaght up with the pr***. I wound the windows down and said cant you see the speed limit down this road is 20, so why were you tailgating me and then overtaking dangerously. He replied oh its a 20 is it, yea nice good on you mate, you think anyone pays attention to that. I replied how about I take your registration plate and report you to the police, for dangerous driving because I could easily milk it and tell them i was genuinely in fear of my safety and the other occupants of the car as you were dangerously tailgating to the point where i could just about see the vans windscreen in my RVM. That soon shut him up. Agree completely with all of this. A lot of these traffic calming measures & reduced speed limits that are introduced do more damage than good.
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Post by ServerKing on Aug 24, 2013 7:25:26 GMT
Since Islington Council impose a borough-wide 20mph zone, the 390 has become a slower alternative to the 91 (before it was faster). No doubt the new stock will make me avoid it even more... You might want to avoid Haringey in October then, they're next to introduce the 20mph zone across the borough. Theory is that the slower the traffic goes, the longer the compost and sand used to fill the potholes created last winter, will last I can't see it being enforced though. Most people ignore it though, I've seen the damage it's done to Islington, the cyclists have taken over. I've seen them riding 5 abreast in places, then there's the fools who cycle like they're in the Tour de France, smh As for routes, I'd say the C10 as well, then the 6 as it goes thru the most depressing part of town (Queen's Park) I used to work in Queen's Park in the Westminster part. I used to love the 370 when it had DLA's, but hate it now with those B7TooLoud's on the route
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2013 10:01:22 GMT
The 65 is awful, rude drivers, unreliable service, and poorly maintained buses I use the 65 quite a bit and its generally ok, do FW put all their rude drivers and poorly maintained buses on one route?
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Post by vjaska on Aug 24, 2013 10:12:45 GMT
The 32 - Why is there so much running time on the route despite it hitting traffic hotspots in Kilburn, Cricklewood, Staples Corner & sometimes at West Hendon.
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Post by Hassaan on Aug 24, 2013 10:30:09 GMT
The 65 is awful, rude drivers, unreliable service, and poorly maintained buses I use the 65 quite a bit and its generally ok, do FW put all their rude drivers and poorly maintained buses on one route? Not sure about the drivers but the Euro 4 FW SP's have the worst engine vibration ever (SP 26-28/52-67/88-104)
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Post by Hassaan on Aug 24, 2013 12:23:39 GMT
Route 120 - overcrowded, unreliable due to Southall traffic (especially as this runs through Southall, as well as 105, but I don't hate it that much), and I've just always detested it since very young. It can smell at times, and it runs ADEs. I don't hate ADEs, but that does mean that when AV get ADEs on the 111 , they then swap it for an SP (to probably put on the 120) which gets me REALLY annoyed, as I dislike the SP. What happened to me once was I was planning to get on ADE31 on the 111 on 20/08/13. They swapped it two stops before where I was getting on! An SP then was forced on me, until I realised there were 2 TAs on the 110. Route 283 - The OVs on the route are starting to get tacky already - and the 391 OVs are much better inside, thus showing how badly the passengers do treat their service buses. It doesn't have a mind on what its southern terminus is, the fact that it gets diverted when QPR play (when - albeit debatable - they don't need ALL that space!) only temporarily... Lol, my local route is the 120 I do find it very tedious and boring at times, although reliability is generally much improved compared to a few years ago (even if it usually gets the most curtailments out of the Southall routes during disruption). I'm quite happy that most of the VA's and VP's have gone, never really liked them ever since they entered service. The 105 is a weird one, I find some buses running several minutes late on Sundays and late evenings which leads to irregular gaps (although there is a lot of traffic in Greenford and Southall town centres plus sometimes on Western Road). The
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2013 21:17:26 GMT
I think 355 is possibly one of the worst routes I have been on. So surprised no one has even mentioned this route. This route has serious problems that are tantamount to many factors. Firstly reliability issues, this route is so well used from Brixton Station through to Clapham Park and Clapham South, especially in afternoon peak times weekly and on Saturday shopping hours. Most passengers who use the route in these times are elderly Afro-Caribbean passengers with there trolleys and shopping, or families with lots of kids. The bus gets packed coming from Tooting and Balham, like what was the point of the 249 extension to Old Town? The bus urgently needs its frequency increased, in afternoons as well as in the mornings, or even double-deck the route, but the turning from Poynders road into Kings Avenue is very tight.
Secondly the vehicles that are currently used are not spacious enough to cope with the huge amount of shopping bags, trolleys, wheelchairs that vacate the bus often. The SE0's which were on the route before, had more room for passengers to stand, away from trolleys and prams. They then changed vehicles to the LDP's which are causing more chaos for passengers. I just avoid the route now when i'm travelling from Brixton to Weir Estate, and use the 50 from Clapham Common. It has become that bad.
I also think the 343 needs an increase in frequency or general support. The route has some excellent links and is well used, but fustrating for passengers who cannot board on at Elephant and Castle, Southampton way etc in peak times. I know residents in Peckham had meetings with TFL to improve the route, but nothing has been done.
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Post by DT 11 on Aug 24, 2013 22:15:34 GMT
The 65 is awful, rude drivers, unreliable service, and poorly maintained buses That's biased. The 65 service has actually improved slightly. You cannot label all the drivers as "rude" Are you an engineer? How exactly do you know the Scanias badly maintained.
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Post by snoggle on Aug 24, 2013 22:23:07 GMT
I also think the 343 needs an increase in frequency or general support. The route has some excellent links and is well used, but fustrating for passengers who cannot board on at Elephant and Castle, Southampton way etc in peak times. I know residents in Peckham had meetings with TFL to improve the route, but nothing has been done. Val Shawcross, the local Assembly member, put an update on her website indicating the 343 would get a boost to x5 mins in the AM peak with a further increase to x4 mins at the very height of the peak between 0800 and 0830. Bizarrely the updated TfL service change list shows only one extra bus running from 31/8/13. Now I am struggling a little bit to see how just one extra bus can translate into the frequency increase suggested. If the locals read the TfL document they're not going to be very happy as it is just a repeat of what has gone before (slight tinkering) whereas the Val Shawcross info looks a bit more meaningful in terms of helping out. I guess it all depends on how things are scheduled and how far the extra buses run - to Elephant or through to City Hall? I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever extra capacity is provided will be gobbled up within weeks and then we're back to square one. Harking back to the Route Masters programme I think the locals want a brand new extra route but there's zero chance of that!
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Post by vjaska on Aug 24, 2013 23:10:50 GMT
I think 355 is possibly one of the worst routes I have been on. So surprised no one has even mentioned this route. This route has serious problems that are tantamount to many factors. Firstly reliability issues, this route is so well used from Brixton Station through to Clapham Park and Clapham South, especially in afternoon peak times weekly and on Saturday shopping hours. Most passengers who use the route in these times are elderly Afro-Caribbean passengers with there trolleys and shopping, or families with lots of kids. The bus gets packed coming from Tooting and Balham, like what was the point of the 249 extension to Old Town? The bus urgently needs its frequency increased, in afternoons as well as in the mornings, or even double-deck the route, but the turning from Poynders road into Kings Avenue is very tight. Secondly the vehicles that are currently used are not spacious enough to cope with the huge amount of shopping bags, trolleys, wheelchairs that vacate the bus often. The SE0's which were on the route before, had more room for passengers to stand, away from trolleys and prams. They then changed vehicles to the LDP's which are causing more chaos for passengers. I just avoid the route now when i'm travelling from Brixton to Weir Estate, and use the 50 from Clapham Common. It has become that bad. I also think the 343 needs an increase in frequency or general support. The route has some excellent links and is well used, but fustrating for passengers who cannot board on at Elephant and Castle, Southampton way etc in peak times. I know residents in Peckham had meetings with TFL to improve the route, but nothing has been done. The route isn't bad, just the LDP's are inadequate for the volume of passengers. I've been saying for years that the 355 would benefit from a conversion to double deckers. As for vehicle allocations, the current LDP's were the vehicles originally brought for the 355 but came off the route in 2009 because the SOE's meant for the 163 & 164 had trouble negotiating speed bumps somewhere in the Borough of Merton and so they were put onto the 355. Once the 355 moved to Q, it took it's LDP's with it returning it to normal.
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Post by sw11simon on Aug 25, 2013 8:49:29 GMT
I also think the 343 needs an increase in frequency or general support. The route has some excellent links and is well used, but fustrating for passengers who cannot board on at Elephant and Castle, Southampton way etc in peak times. I know residents in Peckham had meetings with TFL to improve the route, but nothing has been done. Val Shawcross, the local Assembly member, put an update on her website indicating the 343 would get a boost to x5 mins in the AM peak with a further increase to x4 mins at the very height of the peak between 0800 and 0830. Bizarrely the updated TfL service change list shows only one extra bus running from 31/8/13. Now I am struggling a little bit to see how just one extra bus can translate into the frequency increase suggested. If the locals read the TfL document they're not going to be very happy as it is just a repeat of what has gone before (slight tinkering) whereas the Val Shawcross info looks a bit more meaningful in terms of helping out. I guess it all depends on how things are scheduled and how far the extra buses run - to Elephant or through to City Hall? I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever extra capacity is provided will be gobbled up within weeks and then we're back to square one. Harking back to the Route Masters programme I think the locals want a brand new extra route but there's zero chance of that! There are a few ways this could have been done, I suspect something irregular will happen, such as some of these buses in the increased period starting at Peckham from the garage, and maybe terminating at Elephant. This would address where the traffic need is. It could also involve reduction of scheduled recovery time and slight decreases out of this period. Another thought would be support journeys - anybody remember when there were extra peak hour journeys provided on route 1 provided by a different operator? There are some surplus MEC's coming up soon when the 507/521 get their electric bus allocation. They are good crowd clearers....
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Post by Hassaan on Aug 25, 2013 9:05:48 GMT
The 65 is awful, rude drivers, unreliable service, and poorly maintained buses That's biased. The 65 service has actually improved slightly. You cannot label all the drivers as "rude" Are you an engineer? How exactly do you know the Scanias badly maintained. Maybe he could be using the route more than you and still finds it unreliable, and maybe he has found quite a lot of rude drivers on the 65, and those SP's have more engine vibration than those in other batches which tends to point to some sort of problem with them.
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Post by Mokujin on Aug 25, 2013 11:27:14 GMT
That's biased. The 65 service has actually improved slightly. You cannot label all the drivers as "rude" Are you an engineer? How exactly do you know the Scanias badly maintained. I think you can tell if a bus is badly maintained without actually being an engineer. "Smokey Joe" comes to mind. Yeah, that's true, It doesn't have to be that you must be an engineer to be able to tell that a bus is not properly maintained, buses can be like that everytime.
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Post by vjaska on Aug 25, 2013 11:47:08 GMT
That's biased. The 65 service has actually improved slightly. You cannot label all the drivers as "rude" Are you an engineer? How exactly do you know the Scanias badly maintained. Maybe he could be using the route more than you and still finds it unreliable, and maybe he has found quite a lot of rude drivers on the 65, and those SP's have more engine vibration than those in other batches which tends to point to some sort of problem with them. I think the unreliable service is from the pockets of traffic it meets - anytime I've used it, I've been caught in traffic. Can't comment on the other issues though.
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Post by l1group on Aug 25, 2013 12:24:46 GMT
Three routes I don't like as well are the E3, 237, 607.
607 - it is overcrowded, and I have been overtaken by a 207 between White City and Acton Town Hall. Sometimes, it isn't as fast as it seems on the eastern end and needs a few stops to be removed, e.g. Adelaide Grove (I have said about that somewhere else on the forum, don't know when though)
237 - the route can be very slow at times, and sometimes I do think there is too much running time on the route. I have once had a 237 driver regulate time one stop before terminus, right when I needed it when I was meeting someone at the next stop to cover the LU150 Steam on the Met back in January, which was frustrating.
E3 - people on the route don't treat the buses well, and after a long day, I sometimes see a very messy bus with lots of litter, and the smell of food still lingering. This is mainly due to people from many schools (including mine, I know) doing all this. The route also bunches frequently during the peaks, and once, I saw about 6 buses within 2 mins at one point. Out of a PVR of 26 (when it was with First). The service has slightly improved under Metroline West - some say it has a "new timetable" even! But it still bunches at times, still at peaks. Sometimes, you have three buses. One empty, one with a healthy load, and one full bus. And I end up on the "healthy load" bus, usually (if I do go on the E3).
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