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Colin Rosenstiel · October 24th 05, 11:51 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Sun, 23 Oct 2005 20:28:11 +0100, Ian Jelf

wrote:

In message , Paul
Corfield
On Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:22:28 +0100, Dave Arquati
wrote:

Is it bendy enough to make the left turn from New Oxford Street
into Charing Cross Road, and the turns between Charing Cross Road and
Shaftesbury Avenue? Oh, and the left turn into Piccadilly too?

I have seen a route 25 bendy turn round under Centre point so it
managed the first of your turns.
And I would have thought that the Charing + Road / Shaftesbury
Avenue one would have been the easier of the two.

It's tighter than it looks but the real issue is that both roads
heading in either direction can be full of traffic thus stopping a bus
making the manoeuvre properly, leaving them blocking the junction.
It's bad enough with RMs, worse with LFDDs and I dread to think what
will happen next week with bendies.

The other issue at this junction is that it is a struggle for
southbound 24, 29 and 176s to squeeze past anything turning right into
Shaftesbury Av at Cambridge Circus. With a 18m bendy bus slightly out
of place nothing will move for ages. You can wait a fair few minutes at
Leicester Square waiting for a s/b bus to get past Cambridge Circus
given the ludicrously short phasing for buses.

This will get much worse, in my view, with bendies on the 38 and as
for when the 29 goes over - I think I shall abandon using the 24 as I
can see 29s taking over 15 minutes to get through the multiple sets of
lights near Trafalgar Square. It will certainly be possible for a
bendy bus to straddle at least one junction and two sets of lights just
before St Martins in the Fields.

Oh triffic! I cycle through those junctions and getting buses not to
obstruct the cycle lanes is hard enough now.

--
Colin Rosenstiel