Tom Anderson wrote:


Axe Greater London, i say. Let's have a mayor of London elected by
people who live in London, not some transcluded home counties buffoons
who mostly still insist that they live in 'Metropolitan Kent' or some
such nonsense.


ObLondonFact - the GLC was set up by the Tories including areas which
aren't really London partly because the old LCC basically had an
inherent Labour majority (which is why Labour bitterly opposed the
foundation of the GLC, of course). The GLC was marginal for most of its
existence, as, it seems, is the GLA.

Tom

Tim Woodall wrote:
On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:47:02 +0100,
Tom Barry wrote:
The dreaded 'common sense' of the selfish individual, as expressed by a)
I don't like waiting at traffic lights b) therefore I should be allowed
to ignore them c) therefore I shall arrive at my destination faster d)
therefore the world is a better place.

As opposed to the bendy bus drivers, as expressed by a) I don't like
waiting behind a cyclist b) therefore I should be allowed to ignore them
c) therefore I will turn left across them before I've even got the
articulation of the bus level with them d) therefore the world is a
better place.


A few facts:

1) No cyclists have ever been killed by a London bendy, as Boris now
admits, although he won't admit that he lied during the campaign about this.
2) Cycling has increased in London quite dramatically (north of 100%
now) *over exactly the same period bendy buses have been operating*
(since 2002), suggesting that people aren't generally being put off by
sharing the few London roads that actually have bendies on.
3) The KSI rate for cyclists in London has stayed remarkably constant
despite far more miles being ridden as cycling has taken off.
4) Bendies can kill people in ways double deckers can't. That there
aren't any examples of this concerning cyclists is very welcome, but
nevertheless I accept the point. However...
5) ...double deckers can kill people in ways bendies can't, and there
*are* examples of this, two in the last year*, which unaccountably don't
get reams of fearmongering coverage in the papers. Odd, that.
Obviously DDs operate more miles than bendies, but that brings us to...
6) ...even by the official TfL statistic of 36% more cyclist collisions
for bendies against rigids, once your replacement rigid service goes
over 36% more mileage you're increasing the risk to cyclists *even using
Boris Johnson's own justification*

Actually, on point 6 the off-peak mileage for the rigid 38, for example,
is the same as the existing service since the frequency is unchanged and
therefore the risk to cyclists off-peak is reduced. Unfortunately, by
the Met's statistics most cyclist road collisions happen at peak times,
as you might expect, so the net effect is likely to be a greater risk at
peak times when there are more potential victims and the full bus PVR is
in operation. I'm sufficiently convinced that the risk isn't so high
as to cause piles of dead cyclists all over London since bus/cyclist
fatalities are thankfully rare in London despite the massive increase in
both bus use and cycling in recent years.

Tom

* http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7410203.stm and
http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/...l/article.html

"Marc" wrote in message
...

1 lorry mount a kerb a corner
1 bus splash pedestrians
1 taxi driver stopping on the zigzags of a zebra crossing
1 Private hire vehicle turning right at a "Buses only" right turn 1 post
man parken on a brow of hill
1 police car in a yellow box junction.

And a partridge in a pear tree?

;-)

Ian

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:59:42 +0100, Tom Barry
wrote:
Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:
On Jul 28, 11:10 am, wrote:
Tell me , are british commuter cyclists just particularly incompetant
and/or
stupid compared to european ones who've been living with bendy buses
for years or are you all - what most people suspect is the case -
nothing but a bunch of tedious whingers?
I suggest you try riding a bike round some European city centres some
time. The bus routes in major European cities where bendy buses are
common typically run along broad boulevards which are straight or have
wide, sweeping bends.

What, like the Uxbridge Road, where the 207 bendies will shortly (well,
2011) be replaced by a great many slow-loading single door entry double
deckers like we used to have? RMLs having departed in 1987, it's back
to the Eighties with Boris, then.

As it happens, the 207 is the bendy I encounter most often. There are long
stretches of that route where there isn't room for any bus to overtake a
cyclist safely without crossing the centreline. The longer buses need
longer to pass, meaning there are fewer gaps long enough. Sadly, the
drivers often go for it anyway, and cut or squeeze in.

The longer length gives more opportunity for the bus to move off while a
cyclist is trying to pass, at stops or traffic lights. The extra length is
critical at traffic lights - if the lights start to change at the worst
possible time you can generally get to the front of a rigid before it
moves, but a bendy takes longer to get past. So a bendy at the front of a
queue is an obstacle that cannot be filtered past safely (like an HGV)
whereas a rigid bus can be filtered past safely.

Conclusion: bendy buses make cycle journeys slower and less pleasant. They
may not make them much less safe, but only because cyclists mostly choose
extra delay rather than extra danger.

All that said, if they are a genuine benefit to bus passengers, and there
aren't too many of them, I can live with them. But the drivers need to be
well-trained (including cycle-awareness), and complaints against them need
to be followed up properly.

Colin McKenzie


--
No-one has ever proved that cycle helmets make cycling any safer at the
population level, and anyway cycling is about as safe per mile as walking.
Make an informed choice - visit www.cyclehelmets.org.

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:08:42 -0700 (PDT), "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:

snip


I have never seen a bendy bus on Victoria Embankment. I have seen one
around London Wall. I do not ride along Oxford Street at all, it is
impassable. I did see a bendy bus today as I was riding round Hyde
Park Corner - hard to avoid seeing it in fact as it pulled onto the
roundabout straight into my path. And with 18m of bus that left no
option at all but to stop in the middle of a busy roundabout.


I live that the Highway Code recommends getting off the bike and
walking round if you feel unsafe.

Worth considering.
--
Guy Chapman nym-shifted to Lou Knee in order to call someone a ****.
He was caught out by the evidence of the IP address he used.
He has "implied" that it was not himself - but refuses to answer the simple question:
"Guy Chapman: Did you make the Lou Knee post?"
He is despicable - on this evidence you should not believe *anything* he says.

"bod43" wrote in message
...
On 28 July, 13:24, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:
On Jul 28, 1:15 pm, "Basil Jet"

wrote:
Maybe the bendy routes in London should have been introduced as new
routes
constrained to follow the wider roads, instead of taking over existing
routes like the 73 and expecting bendies to turn from Stoke Newington
Church
St to Albion Road without causing problems.

Yes, that would have been a good idea.

I think that getting rid of them all just because they are used badly
is every bot as foolish as introducing them into routes where they
cause problems.

I have commuted daily by bus on a bendy route and
they have approximately zero seats. I think that this may
have figured into the calculation to phase them out.

Nothing at all to do with them being Ken's busses and not
Boris' I am sure.
===============================

Pure practicalities.

The factors a

Low floor required (for DDA, buggy brigade, etc)
Three axles required therefore six wheel arches, four of which are for twin
wheels, and two of which are for wheels that need room to steer. So wheel
arches extend some way into floor area, and are too tall to mount seats on
top, because of low floor.

Two (at least) and often three doors required - can't put seats there.

Buggy bay and disabled wheelchair bay - can't put seats there, or, if you
do, they will be little folddown ones.

Luggage pen if provided - more seat space lost.

Engine/ cooling/ etc - at back in corner, more seats lost.

The bendy bit - can't put seats there.

A bendybus might only have 45-50 seats, same as a singledeck rigid.

But it can carry a helluva lot more standing passengers than a rigid and
this is the big advantage, so long as the route does not use motorways. (not
many bus routes do so, although some do).

(Similar considerations on seating apply to double deckers, with yet more
seats being lost for space for stairway. A double decker might only have
around 24 seats downstairs, but many more than that on the top deck; you may
as well use a miniDart for the same route if the passenger profile is mostly
OAP who won't go upstairs. Or of they do, it takes them half a day to
clamber up and down, whilst the bus is stationary at a busstop.....Perhaps
they should fit a Stannah Stair Lift to doubledeckers....)

Hope that clarifies why bendies don't have many seats.

"Just zis Guy, you know?" wrote in message
...
On Jul 28, 11:10 am, wrote:

Tell me , are british commuter cyclists just particularly incompetant
and/or
stupid compared to european ones who've been living with bendy buses
for years or are you all - what most people suspect is the case - nothing
but
a bunch of tedious whingers?

I suggest you try riding a bike round some European city centres some
time. The bus routes in major European cities where bendy buses are
common typically run along broad boulevards which are straight or have
wide, sweeping bends. The narrow, twisty streets of London are one of
the main reasons the late lamented Routemaster was originally
developed.
--
Guy

====================

Good idea..... you might meet up with some of these...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-articulated_bus

Two bendy bits per bus!!! Think yourself lucky in UK, with only one bendy
bit!

)

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:59:36 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote:
In message , at 22:39:11 on
Mon, 27 Jul 2009, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
remarked:
Note also that female cyclists are disproportionately involved in
these LGV crushing incidents. It's likely that this is because they
are less assertive on the road and more likely to ride too close to
the edge. There is a big difference between riding defensively and
riding timidly.

Without wishing to start a huge sexist debate, it's well known that
females have less well developed spatial awareness. (It's because the
males developed this in order to be successful hunters, which the
females don't generally have to do).

But overall, female cyclists have fewer casualties than male. It's just
with HGVs that they seem to be more at risk.

Colin McKenzie


--
No-one has ever proved that cycle helmets make cycling any safer at the
population level, and anyway cycling is about as safe per mile as walking.
Make an informed choice - visit www.cyclehelmets.org.

In message , at 08:29:54 on Wed, 29
Jul 2009, Ian remarked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi-articulated_bus

Two bendy bits per bus!!!

They have those in Geneva. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/25005195
--
Roland Perry

"Phil W Lee" phil(at)lee-family(dot)me(dot)uk wrote in message
news
I suspect the major difference between London bendy buses and their
european counterparts is the standard of driver training.

Our drivers here are trained? Are you sure?

Ian