Bye bye M4 bus lane

[OllyM]

It's official, the pointless M4 bus lane is going to be scrapped

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11451350

 

[DM]

About time that was an abortion of an idea from the start.

 

[Will Gill]

awesome no more moronic taxi drivers joining the fast lane at 15mph

good bloody riddance

 

[ci_newman]

About time, there's barely ever any traffic on it

 

[ubersonic]

Excellent, next they should make the M6 toll free to use, that way instead of one road near gridlocked and one near empty the will be 2 roads at 50% capacity

 

[stockhausen]

In his rant to the Loony Party, Philip the Hamster (Stupid Ideas Secretary) is expected to say: "Nothing is more symbolic of Labour's war on the motorist than the M4 bus lane."

If this is the way the Tories believe wars are fought, I can see the Taliban getting very, very worried

 

[Cosimo]

It's great for coming home by taxi from Heathrow.

 

[kippermitten]

Oh NOEEESSSS!!! I love the bike lane I mean bus lane...
The joys of trundling along past lanes of non moving cars - gone!

 

[Morba]

Excellent, next they should make the M6 toll free to use, that way instead of one road near gridlocked and one near empty the will be 2 roads at 50% capacity

Bugger off

 

[andi]

That's so pathetic, it's just a case of "labour did this and its unpopular so LOOK AT US we'll get rid of it" without actually understanding why its there, and that its nothing to do with busses.

 

[ubersonic]

That's so pathetic, it's just a case of "labour did this and its unpopular so LOOK AT US we'll get rid of it" without actually understanding why its there, and that its nothing to do with busses.

Meh, labour did something stupid, their reversing it, its a good thing regardless of their motivations. Hopefully they will also repeal the digital economy bill and give our armed forces proper equipment.

 

[sam16dec]

About time this was scrapped.

 

[growse]

What was it meant to achieve in the first place? And did it actually succeed?

 

[allday247]

I hate that Bus lane on the M4. Get's so abused by taxi's. Then the merge in before the flyover is stupid too.

 

[Dolph]

That's so pathetic, it's just a case of "labour did this and its unpopular so LOOK AT US we'll get rid of it" without actually understanding why its there, and that its nothing to do with busses.

So why was it there? Apart from to disrupt the traffic flow to make the car less attractive and horrific public transport solutions seem slightly more pallatable?

It isn't pathetic to abandon a failed policy that has no evidential support whatsoever...

 

[[TW]Fox]

I think it was there to move a chokepoint further back to an area where it causes less disruption and smooths the trafficflow. They were going to close it completely and then figured they may as well let buses use it.

Something to do with the point at which the M4 becomes two lanes being right after a major junction?

 

[Janesy B]

Turns into 2 lanes in West London, just after junction 3 if you are going into London.

 

[Jonny69]

You do all realise the traffic on that stretch of road was no worse before the bus lane was put in, don't you? Or do you not remember?

 

[Cosimo]

Turns into 2 lanes in West London, just after junction 3 if you are going into London.

It turns into 2 lanes around 3.5 miles past that junction just before the elevated section.

 

[Cosimo]

You do all realise the traffic on that stretch of road was no worse before the bus lane was put in, don't you? Or do you not remember?

Yup and out of rush hour with that lane present traffic flows at a good rate into the elevated two lane section coming into town.

Having that lane and the speed cameras appears to have eased the three lanes into two lane bottleneck during the rush hour. So you start queuing further away from the bottleneck during rush hour.

Getting rid of the bus lane means you might get closer to the bottleneck quicker but you may have to wait longer to filter into the two lanes. I wonder how much of a change this will really achieve as you're still going to be queuing somewhere along that stretch of road. We shall see.