On 25 Nov, 21:58, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Wed, 24 Nov 2010 17:04:00 -0800 (PST), MIG

wrote:
Would this argument be happening if Oxford Street happened to have a
roof over it?

Possibly - the shop owners would be complaining about people being
gassed to death by buses.

Then it would be a shopping centre, and buses wouldn't be expected
inside.

Now you go and make things realistic. Shame!

I don't really understand why it's that much of an issue whether buses
go past the front door or back door of the shops. *If the changes
involved a quicker route to some kind of bus station it might actually
improve access.

I think it is an issue. It has been proven time and again in provincial
cities that if you pedestrianise and shove buses out to the periphery of
the central area and impose a walking premium to and from stops then the
bus network loses patronage. You therefore weaken the entire network and
this will means cuts to services and / on increased fares. *Why on earth
should the viability and attractiveness of the bus network be sacrificed
to please a few shop owners? *What right do they have to dictate
transport policy in London or in any big city? * I appreciate that the
TfL network has different funding arrangements than elsewhere in the
country and may not be quite as vulnerable to cuts but even so several
useful links have been broken just to keep the Oxford Street shops
happy. *The 176 "round the corner" link at TCR gone, the 113 to Oxford
Circus gone, the 8 to Victoria gone, the 15 to Oxford Street and
Paddington gone. *There have been some replacements such as the C2 to
Victoria and the 159 to Paddington but the 15 could have been rerouted
via Piccadilly and Park Lane to give a brand new link in the network at
no cost in terms of extra buses. Why wasn't it done?

The 6 and 23 have had their frequencies reduced and half of the 25 will
be terminated at Holborn Circus M-S when it goes double deck in order to
avoid increasing bus numbers in Oxford Street. *Ironically all buses
will run through on a Sunday meaning the best route 25 service in Oxford
Street will be on a Sunday rather than the rush hour. *Someone care to
explain the logic in that? *No one has yet explained what on earth
happens with the 73 when it converts to double deck as that must present
a real challenge in keeping bus numbers down but still providing
adequate capacity for what is a very busy corridor from Oxford St to
Victoria. TfL will not be able to turn part of the service at TCR as
there is no space now and you've got much bigger works to come.

If, as the shop keepers and the Big West End Company say, Oxford Street
is prime retail territory then where on earth is TfL going to get the
money from to buy the land to build a bus station?

You have three areas of "bus stand" - TCR, Oxford Circus and thereabouts
and Marble Arch. TCR will lose space permanently as a result of the
station expansion, to terminate more buses at Oxford Circus would cause
the shop owners to blow a gasket and Marble Arch is still just a
glorified roundabout and has no spare land and no spare stand capacity.

Bus travel is not significantly quicker than walking between Tottenham
Court Road and Bond Street with the current arrangement. *If one
arrives on a 25 from the east, say, it generally makes sense to get
off in New Oxford Street and do the rest on foot. *That won't really
change.

While Oxford St can get a bit jammed I do not think it is the bus
nightmare that the shop owners present it as. The problem is that a
number of key routes in the bus network use Oxford Street on *part* of
their journey. If they are all curtailed at the edges then the bus
network loses utility and people will stop using buses and either
congest the tube even more or use cars. Those results don't take you
forward IMO. *There are no convenient east - west routes to the south of
Oxford Street and only Wigmore St to the north for the western half of
Oxford Street. There is apparently huge local resistance to any buses
running down Wigmore Street even though they did in the 50s and 60s.
You're therefore stuck as to what to do - you either keep things as they
are or you terminate all the routes at Marble Arch and TCR and force
people to walk or push themselves in their wheelchairs. *I would point
out there is no space at Marble Arch for more routes to terminate and
Tottenham Court Road Stn is a huge building site for 8 years. *

The ideal would be a tram but *only* if it was part of a wider network
of light rail services that served other parts of London. There is, of
course, no aspiration to make such an improvement to London's transport
network. The emphasis is on more subterranean services with their longer
access times from street to platform. *We are therefore left with what
looks like a battle between bus passengers and shop owners. In my view
the bit that the shop owners sometimes forget (or at least appear to do
so) is that those same bus passengers are either their employees or else
their customers. *It seems immensely short sighted to make it harder for
your employees to get to work or for people to access your businesses to
spend money. *Still I'm just someone who uses buses so what do I know?

--
Paul C

Wouldn't it be better to keep the 73 PVR as it is now and increase the
476 between Stokey and Central London? I'd suggest that it goes
somewhere more useful than Euston.

Since mass OPO conversions bus travel in the West End is often so slow
that it's quicker to walk anyway.