Forum Topic

The cycling lobby has been allowed to ruin London’s bus service

I'm sure people will be interested in this article by Vincent Stopshttps://www.onlondon.co.uk/vincent-stops-the-cycling-lobby-has-been-allowed-to-ruin-londons-bus-service/Although there does seem to be a great deal of truth in what he writes, there is an absence of detail when he comes to his claims that there is a direct link between deteriorating bus services and the introduction of cycle lanes. Obviously taking bus lanes out of action will reduce reliability as anybody who uses local buses will be able to tell you but nobody seems to have bothered to measure the impact in a way that would be generally accepted. Without this data the argument is just going to rage on.

Jeremy Parkinson ● 1416d16 Comments

Yay - another anti-cycling thread!  "A ruthless and well resourced minority interest has had too much influence on streets policy in London"Nice.  So the motoring lobby wants to take away the bike lanes because they're pro bus.  And once they've done that....they'll be after the bus lanes.Fishers Lane is a bus route - but they want to close it.The central conceit is that it is bus lanes or bike lanes - a zero sum choice.In fact it should be both.  In a busy city, the high efficiency, less dangerous and less polluting modes of travel should be prioritised over private car use.Although have to admire the guy for saying that bus travel is active travel because you walk to the bus stop.  So is tube travel then.  And if you have to walk to your car or a car park, then that's active travel too innit :-)

Ed Saper ● 1416d

Ed, a dangerous and disingenuous response. We can see very clearly in W4 how bus lanes have been sacrificed for cycle lanes, and I have said before the deterioritation in bus performance over recent years is a major concern. How about addressing some of the very real points raised rather than the high level and dismissive response?I understand your passion for cycling, but dismissing any and every criticism of current polices as some kind of mad motoring group plan is not helpful. The article is entirely correct to point out the importance of bus travel and yet none of the regular cycling posters on here appear to use buses or acknowledge the issues the bus service faces when bus lanes are removed. I think we also need to move on from the dubious idea that the only acceptable form of travel is 'active'. This constant moralising from healthy middle class WFH professionals ignores large sections of the population for whom a bike is not a realistic option, whether for health reasons or the demandsof their particular job or journey. We can all I think agree that Boris was beyond useless and obsessed with his own pet ideas rather than any fact based policy. We can also agree that there are too many cars on our roads, but the question is how we address that. Making bus services more unreliable will not do that.

Bill George ● 1416d

We do have data on the 267 westbound covering 2020, 2021 and the first couple of months of 2022. The 267 runs from Hammersmith to Gunnersbury Station and would have likely been requested as the route and direction would be sensitive to any delays due to C9. A reasonable baseline is the period before the pandemic, up to March 2020. The average delay during the pm peak, from 1600 to 1900, over that period was just under 5 minutes. If we compare to the entire period that C9(T) was open, from 22/12/2020 to 22/11/21, the average delay was again just under 5 minutes.  There was no delay in the same period in 2021 as the baseline - the  267 ran 5 mins faster than the baseline with C9(T) open compared to a year earlier. Of course traffic will have been affected by the pandemic, and that might have offset any delays due to C9(T). However, the data for 2022, when the stretch of C9 from Goldhawk Road to Chiswick Lane was under construction, and traffic levels had returned very close to normal, shows less than 30 s delay, better than the baseline.  Overall the actual 267 westbound pm peak run times which should be most sensitive to any delays from C9 show no evidence of increased run times, rather the opposite. This reflects that the length of bus lane removed was minimal, a short stretch in front of the old police station, and the bus islands allow buses to pull out immediately into empty road rather than waiting for a gap in traffic.  The data can be downloaded from the TfL FOI website under FOI-2644-2122 if anyone wants to do their own analysis.

Tom Pike ● 1416d

Its funny how the extent of CHR bus lanes has now reached legendary status in the minds of cycle lane opponents despite the lack of continuous bus lanes along Chiswick High Road previously. The only section of bus lane in the central section of CHR was 70m alongside Old Market Place* between the Fire Station restaurant and the Police station and this only operated during peak times weekdays and was a car park on Sundays. I must have missed the cycle lane opponents calling for this bus lane to be extended in length and times of operation before C9 was built.  It goes without saying they would have been howling in anger if this was proposed. *'Old Market Place' used deliberately to wind up the Onesies who will be calling for police to arrest anyone using this name, the snowflakes.

Michael Robinson ● 1416d

"a dangerous response" apparently, according to Bill!  Vincent starts off with:"A ruthless and well resourced minority interest has had too much influence on streets policy in London"So we know exactly where the author stands - he's firmly in the OneChiswick camp.  And Bill - you do love your straw man arguments, don't you!  The only people who don't like bus lanes are the motoring lobby who want the roads to themselves.  Which bus route is OneChiswick campaigning to get back for cars?  Fishers Lane.  Let me spell it out for you Bill - as a car owner, bus user, tubist, pedestrian and cyclist - I support bus lanes, I'd like more of them.  Great for buses, cyclists and black cabs.  Perhaps you agree and you'd also like more bus lanes?  Maybe you even agree with me that cycle lanes shouldn't replace bus lanes?Then we're in perfect alignment....except for one small detail....I think new bus lanes should be put where there are existing car lanes, while you think bus lanes are a-ok so long as they only replace bike lanes.  Oh - and we need more cycle lanes too!

Ed Saper ● 1416d

Vincent Stops has had a chip on his shoulder for years about the Evil Cycling Lobby.His partner was formerly one of the main people in the Hackney group of London Cycling Campaign but was voted out because most of their members wanted more protected cycle lanes and she didn't.  He has never forgiven them for that.Stops is a big proponent of LTNs and advocated for many well before Covid when he was a Hackney councillor.

Michael Robinson ● 1416d

The Old Bus Lane didn't even run the length of Old Market Place.   It started at Planet Organic (Old As Nature Intended) and ended at the Old Police Station. That's 150ft or 45m — about 3 bus lengths. Starts here: Ends here — there's even a bus in it for scale: And is arguably shorter than the Fishers Lane bus route OneChiswick want to remove:

Ed Saper ● 1416d

In so far as cyclists can use bus lanes, it seems unnecessary to construct a separate cycle lane along CHR at all, when all it needed was to install a continuous bus lane for the benefit of both, while also removing parked cars. I've also never understood why cars were allowed to park in the road on Sundays when there was a similar amount of retail activity and traffic as in the week.

Peter Evans ● 1416d

The Onesies loved that short stretch of bus lane because they could park in it. People who think it's a human right to drive their high-powered BMWs half a mile to the shops are not bus users. They're drivers who want to pitch bus users against cyclists in the hope that can continue to own all the road space. Bill isn't just campaigning against the removal of the Fishers Lane bus route he is also campaigning against the bus gate outside The Italians. Why? Because he thinks its prioritisation of bus users inconveniences car drivers. Maybe this schtick worked for the selfish drivers in the 90s but it isn't going to work any more.So here's a proposal to unite all the fans of buses. Let's install a bus gate just west of TGT and another one just east of Heathfield Terrace with resident permit holder access, blue badge access and set loading times for shops. Let's really prioritise buses and cyclists in the central shopping section of CHR by totally deprioritising cars. Who is with me? Could this be the moment Onesies and ECL unite?

Paul Campbell ● 1416d

Mixing cycles and buses isn't a very good idea.There are the obvious safety issues.Additionally, cyclists slow down buses between the stops and buses slow down cyclists at the stops.Anyone who has cycled in a bus lane knows the continual 'leap frog' that goes on with each pass presenting risk.  Not the sort of thing that will get parents and their kids cycling to school.

Michael Robinson ● 1416d

When somebody has written an intelligent article stating the obvious - that the cycling lobby has indeed been allowed to ruin the London Bus service - something that everybody in Chiswick has been a daily witness to - there is an immediate response on here of the usual Hounslow Cycling group desperately shouting it down one after the other. May I suggest people read the thoughtful article by Vincent Stops and make up their own minds.  Or just go out and look at buses struggling up and down Chiswick High Road.

Susan Engel ● 1416d

You use the same tactics as Vincent Susan - dismiss the facts that dismantle your evidence-free assertions because you are not able to engage with them.Why are you and the rest of the Onesies so determined to pretend that there are no roadworks on the A4 causing major disruption to traffic in the area`? Who do you think is going to believe you that they don't exist and that a cycle lane is causing it? What are you hoping to achieve with your denial of reality?

Paul Campbell ● 1416d

The bus running times do not show the 267 is delayed. It’s interesting that whoever requested the running times back in February stated they wanted the data to demonstrate the delay. They got the data, but did not go on to use it to prove anything. That’s because there’s no delay from C9 evident in the data.

Tom Pike ● 1416d

As it is we've got a queue of cars outside our house trying to bypass the hold ups in South Parade and Acton and Bollo Lanes which are, in turn, trying to by-pass the hold ups along CHR, which are in turn... Any further ideas that try to clear CHR of undesirable traffic will only make things worse where we are, unless every other street has a barrier or a restriction, which might be what some people want. I can see it now, as straggles of motorised refugees, on foot with their shoes worn out from the long trudge in from the new M25 barbed wire boundary, dragging their possessions behind them, or exhausted on their battered and overloaded bicycles... That'll teach them for wanting a comfortable seat, protected from the weather in a sophisticated labour saving vehicle! Unless it's a bus, of course!

Peter Evans ● 1416d

Is this some sort of game where you all avoid mentioning the roadworks on the A4 diverting all the traffic onto CHR and South Parade?"unless every other street has a barrier or a restriction".It sounds outlandish or extreme until you realise that is exactly what has happened in Homefields Ward where just a few roads have been retained as through roads and all the cars are corralled onto those. Nobody notices. Nobody cares. The sky does not fall in. The majority of people live on quiet, calm, traffic-controlled streets and they love it. And it is exactly what is going to happen in every Ward in Hammersmith in the next two years.

Paul Campbell ● 1416d

Paul you are obsessed, and it's getting boring now, but it makes me smile that you are so incensed.  Your claim that the A4 is the cause of all the problems is only your opinion.

Maggie Dodge ● 1416d