These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear ends round our corners for the final time.
 

In message , at 11:18:14 on Mon, 27
Jul 2009, Tom Barry remarked:
Zebra crossings and box junctions should be redesigned so that the
lanes are clearly marked through them, and it should be made an
offence to change lane on a box junction or zebra crossing (with
public information films to explain why the change).
Costly and time consuming. Why not just use a more suitable bus?

Show us your working out - you need to do the roadwork *once*,

And getting the new provisions into a Transport Act, and all the
publicity, and the enforcement costs (in perpetuity).

you need to pay the extra cost of less cost-effective buses *every year
forever*.

But there's also an immediate cost saving from the shorter buses because
of the reduced congestion at these particular junctions.

By your logic you shouldn't put in bus lanes, either, since you're
discounting the upside of providing a better bus service in any
cost/benefit calculation.

Bus lanes *only* make sense if they have a positive cost-benefit. But
what's needed here is a study of whether the alleged extra cost of
shorter buses exceeds the costs of the measures you suggest.
--
Roland Perry

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rearends round our corners for the final time.
 

On Jul 26, 11:34*pm, Andy wrote:
On Jul 26, 11:06*pm, "Ian F." wrote:

"Bruce" wrote in message

.. .

I admit to having an inbuilt patholgocial hatred of cyclists who
disobey the rules of the road, so I'm as guilty as anyone. *But I do
think that the bendy buses have been vilified for a lot of problems
that they don't cause.

I hate them for the one major problem they *do* cause - fare-dodging!

Well, they don't cause the fare-dodging. Facilitate it maybe, but the
it is the fare-dodgers that cause the fare-dodging.

Pedantry aside, surely the solution to discouraging fare-dodging is to
increase inspections, not to change the bus?

I don't suppose anyone knows how the statistics compare for fare-
dodging on bendy buses vs Tramlink or the DLR, where it's also easy to
board without a ticket?

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rearends round our corners for the final time.
 

David Cantrell wrote:
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 02:34:11PM +0000, wrote:

Ie perfectly servicable vehicles are about to be mothballed for no good
reason other than a bunch of whining idiot cyclists and a grandstanding
politician.

Don't forget the people who voted for him.

Don't forget the lies about 'many cyclists killed every year'. People
voted for him based on that kind of crap.

Boris esssentially had two choices - the brave one of admitting he was
wrong and committing to a case-by-case analysis of bus routes based on
objective criteria (fare evasion, junction blocking, boarding time,
cost) or the cowardly one of pretending he was telling the truth and
scrapping them all without consultation* or debate. We know what kind
of man he is now.

Tom

* That's not entirely true, TfL did consult, and then ignored it despite
even Westminster Council accepting that bendies made sense on the Red
Arrows.

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rearends round our corners for the final time.
 

Martin Deutsch wrote:
On Jul 26, 11:34 pm, Andy wrote:
On Jul 26, 11:06 pm, "Ian F." wrote:

"Bruce" wrote in message
...
I admit to having an inbuilt patholgocial hatred of cyclists who
disobey the rules of the road, so I'm as guilty as anyone. But I do
think that the bendy buses have been vilified for a lot of problems
that they don't cause.
I hate them for the one major problem they *do* cause - fare-dodging!
Well, they don't cause the fare-dodging. Facilitate it maybe, but the
it is the fare-dodgers that cause the fare-dodging.

Pedantry aside, surely the solution to discouraging fare-dodging is to
increase inspections, not to change the bus?

I don't suppose anyone knows how the statistics compare for fare-
dodging on bendy buses vs Tramlink or the DLR, where it's also easy to
board without a ticket?

Or indeed on Routemasters in the old days, where when packed it was
perfectly easy to dodge, apparently, not least because it could easily
have been impossible to buy a ticket in the time available.

We do know that fare evasion dropped sharply on Overground
post-Silverlink and before that on the Underground when Oyster and
gating came in, so it's likely that on the transport network as a whole
fare evasion is rather lower than it was a few years ago. I have to say
I don't consider fare evasion alone as sufficient reason to scrap them,
not least because it nowhere near pays for the extra cost of less
efficient buses, so you end up not being able to do something socially
useful elsewhere in the city.

Tom

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rearends round our corners for the final time.
 

On Sun, 26 Jul 2009, MIG wrote:

Never mind class or party politics; what about "I don't like to have a
totally unsuitable vehicle blocking the pedestrian crossings, forcing me
to risk my life to get across the road"?

That's a problem with the drivers, not the buses, and is not restricted to
bendies, although of course it's worse with them. Are there any real
problems with the bendies which are intrinsic to the bus itself?

tom

--
I know thats not really relevant but I've just typed the words and my
backspace key doesn't work. -- phorenzik

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rearends round our corners for the final time.
 

Has anyone been on the 507 today, especially during the rush? What's
it been like and is the increase in number of buses actually causing
more congestion?

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rearends round our corners for the final time.
 

On 27 July, 13:21, Tom Barry wrote:
David Cantrell wrote:
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 02:34:11PM +0000, wrote:

Ie perfectly servicable vehicles are about to be mothballed for no good
reason other than a bunch of whining idiot cyclists and a grandstanding
politician.

Don't forget the people who voted for him.

Don't forget the lies about 'many cyclists killed every year'. *People
voted for him based on that kind of crap.

Boris esssentially had two choices - the brave one of admitting he was
wrong and committing to a case-by-case analysis of bus routes based on
objective criteria (fare evasion, junction blocking, boarding time,
cost) or the cowardly one of pretending he was telling the truth and
scrapping them all without consultation* or debate. *We know what kind
of man he is now.

Tom

* That's not entirely true, TfL did consult, and then ignored it despite
even Westminster Council accepting that bendies made sense on the Red
Arrows.

If this group is anything to go by, anyone promising to kill all
cyclists would be a cert to win any election.

Maybe people realise that voting for Boris is, in the long term,
voting for cars to replace public transport (and kill plenty of
cyclists). They realised that his apparent pro-cycling tendencies
were just spin.

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rearends round our corners for the final time.
 

Lucas wrote:
Has anyone been on the 507 today, especially during the rush? What's
it been like and is the increase in number of buses actually causing
more congestion?

A couple of tweets earlier mentioned a friend waiting ten minutes and
the bus being crush-loaded, but also that this was par for the course on
the 507 lately. Others commenting on how small the bus was and how few
seats there were. Not seen any indication of bendies still being in use
so it's possible they had all the MECs in service or tried to run it
with whatever they had to avoid embarrassing the Boss.

Tom

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear ends round our corners for the final time.
 

On Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:20:53 +0100
David Cantrell wrote:


On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 02:34:11PM +0000, wrote:

Ie perfectly servicable vehicles are about to be mothballed for no good
reason other than a bunch of whining idiot cyclists and a grandstanding
politician.

Don't forget the people who voted for him.

I voted for him because he was less worse than the rest. But I assumed that
getting rid of bendy buses was just a standard issue electoral attention
grabber which would soon be brushed under the carpet once the cost had been
properly worked out and common sense would prevail. If I'd known at the time
that Boris was a cyclist I would have realised that common sense would be
shot on sight.

B2003

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear ends round our corners for the final time.
 

wrote in message
On Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:20:53 +0100


Don't forget the people who voted for him.

I voted for him because he was less worse than the rest. But I
assumed that getting rid of bendy buses was just a standard issue
electoral attention grabber which would soon be brushed under the
carpet once the cost had been properly worked out and common sense
would prevail. If I'd known at the time that Boris was a cyclist I
would have realised that common sense would be shot on sight.

I don't think it was any secret that he was and is a keen cyclist.