Along the Cambridge Busway
Where I was going was just a short walk from a stop on the new Cambridge Busway, but because I couldn’t find anybody who knew the rules about the busway, I decided to go to my meeting in a taxi. I did however take the busway back to Cambridge City centre on the way back to the station and took these pictures.
The bus was quite smart with leather seats and wi-fi.
But the busway has a lot of design faults.
- There is no information on the busway at the station.
- It would be logical if all buses went via the main bus station at Dummer Street and the rail station. I assumed this. When I found myself dumped in the centre, I decided to have lunch and then had to queue up for another bus for the station. I’d have preferred to go straight to the station.
- There is no timing on the bus maps, so you have no idea when you might want to ask someone to pick you up.
- The bus displays at the stops, don’t say whether they go to the rail station. They don’t list the intermediate stops too, as trains do.
- As they are new modern buses, why can’t they announce the stops like all London ones do?
- The bus map is poor and lacks detail. It does have a text system to find the next bus, but you have to type in 8 letters. How come London can handle all of the metropolis with just 5 digits! Perhaps people in Cambridge like to have their fingers tested, whereas those in London can only manage 5 digits!
It all smacks of a design that wasn’t put together by the best designer. It is attention to detail, that makes tranportation systems good. London and Sheffield have informastion systems that are so much better.
Bus-Top Art
The stop at the end of my road has got one of the new video displays, which are part of bus-top art.
I tried to get a picture of the art this morning, but failed. Perhaps it wasn’t switched on yet. Or perhaps, the angle is wrong from a new hybrid 76 bus.
It is all part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
It will be interesting to see it, when it’s working properly.
Here is a video I took on February 16th, 2012
The camerawork could be better, but it does show the concept.
So This Is Clapton Pond!
Coming back home yesterday after lunch in Walthamstow, I changed buses at Clapton Pond.
Note the bus stands on the roundabout. This where the 38s turn round. So will Clapton Pond become a tourist destination, when the New Bus for London enters service on that route on the 20th February 2012.
Double-Decker Trains for HS2
According to the Sunday Times today, a design consultancy, Priestmangoode has been asked to make the trains on HS2 as sexy as possible.
I’m all for this and have stated that we should make trains more passenger friendly several times. Here’s a piece where I advocated a better approach to the trains to the West Country and the north of Scotland from London using rebuilt High Speed Diesel Trains.
Transport for London have used this design-led approach on the New Bus for London and I hope it goes well for them, when the bus is introduced next month.
So get the trains right and of course build them in the UK and we might have a railway to be proud of. As someone, who’s travelled from London to Nice on Eurostar and a TGV Duplex, we don’t have much competition from the French. The TGV Duplex may look impressive on the outside, but inside it’s rather cramped and stuffy and the ride is not as good as a High Speed Diesel Train.
How to Do a Football Shuttle Bus
The Madejski Stadium isn’t close to Reading town centre or the station, but getting there on Saturday couldn’t have been easier.
At the station there was a signpost that couldn’t have been clearer.
Signpost at Reading Station
The walk wasn’t far too and I think it will be shorter and easier, once they finish the works at the station.
A Smart Football Shuttle Bus
The bus was a rather smart Alexander Dennis Enviro 400 and I think it was a hybrid too. It was also free to those with a bus pass.
Many other clubs could do well to look at how Reading organise the transport for fans.
It was a pity Ipswich went and lost.
Welcome To Basingstoke
I have a cartoon on my wall, which shows rolling English countryside, with in the distance a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion rising into the sky. In the foreground, a man is saying to his friend.
“The Russians can’t be all bad. They’ve made Basingstoke a first strike target.”
I have other reasons to dislike the place, as an old accountant of mine suggested, I put some money into a property development there. I lost several millions and could have lost a lot more, but I had better friends in high places. It was an expensive lesson and now I don’t trust financial advisors, especially when they have nothing to lose from recommending a bad investment.
So for only the second time in my life, I went to the place to a funeral of an old friend.
I had plenty of time, so I hoped I’d be able to get a bus to the crematorium. I knew I could take a taxi, but I object to doing that, as they are expensive and often rip-off merchants.
I found the bus station, which is quite an unfriendly walk from the train station and they told me there was no bus to anywhere near the crematorium. What would cash-strapped pensioners have done? Walked.
I should say, that the web page for the crematorium doesn’t have any instructions about how to get there on public transport. How arrogant!
It should be the law that certain places in a town or city like the hospital, crematorium, tourist office, main shops and council offices are easily reached by bus from the station. On my travels around the country, I found a lot of places, where these rules were broken.
I shall not be going to Basingstoke again unless it is to change trains to somewhere more welcoming.
Should New Routemasters Be Named?
I know they’re not called New Routemasters officially, but will they ever be called anything else?
I think all of the buses should be individually named, perhaps in series to reflect the area they run through.
After all, there a lot of Londoners to name them after.
If we take the 38 route, famous people with strong Hackney connections who would be suitable might include.
I would like the list to be quirky and slightly educational and without any trace of politicians or jobsworths.
They could also be named indirectly. So for instance Edmond Halley might be commemorated by a bus named Halley’s Comet or Jessica Tandy, who was born in Clapton, by one called Miss Daisy. And then what about The Italian Job for Michael Caine, after all one of the stars was a coach.
Local heroes would be allowed, like the named after Dave Gardner.
Take a New Routemaster to Romantic Clapton Pond on the 20th of February 2012
I’d thought that the new Routemaster was going to be introduced on the route 38 between Victoria and Clapton Pond and today it was confirmed that they’ll start on the 20th of February. Initially, they’ll just be eight of them.
I went to a presentation on the bus some months ago and I think it will be a good addition to London’s bus fleet.
The choice of route 38 is an interesting one. But in my view a correct one.
At the southern end, it starts at Victoria, which is a major transport interchange, where lots of visitors arrive. I hope that they make sure that the route keeps its prime stop in front of the station. I doubt anybody with any marketing nouse would do anything, except make it more obvious.
It then goes straight through the West End, past or close to, some of London’s most important places and landmarks, like Buck House, Green Park, Piccadilly Circus, many of the theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue, and the British Museum. The route in this area, is only a short walk from places like Soho, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury, and Leicester and Trafalgar Squares. So I think, if they get the hop-on/hop-off right in this section, I think it will be a very valuable addition to the transport landscape of this part of London. As I have experienced several times, getting a bus in this area at times is often a long wait because of all the traffic that shouldn’t be there. But at least with a hop-on/hop-off bus, you won’t have to wait for the stop. But even when it is working as a normal bus, it’ll have an extra door, which will mean that it unloads and loads quicker.
After Bloomsbury, the route does its more mundane work, through Clerkenwell, Islington and down the Essex Road to Dalston and on to Hackney and eventually to Clapton Pond. This is where I use the route a lot as none of the Underground or Overground lines, really get you from Hackney to Islington or on to the West End. Having seen the inside of the mock-up, I feel that the bus will suit this part of the route well, as passengers often have large amounts of shopping and cases and I have a feeling that New Routemasters might be better at handling, this type of passenger, as they have three entrances and two staircases, which will enable the more mobile and unencumbered passengers to get quickly and easily upstairs and out of the way.
As an aside here, it will be interesting to see if two staircases, raise the average loading on the top deck.
Hackney and Clapton are not really leisure destinations in London. But could putting New Routemasters on the major route to the area, help in that direction. Clapton Pond, may not sound romantic, but if you were say walking the Lea Valley, it is one place to start. Uniquely, the 38 bus terminus at Clapton is in the middle of a roundabout, which means it is easy to turn the buses back to Victoria.
If I was Hackney Council, I’d put a very small amount of work into the roundabout, as the arrival of the buses, will attract bus anoraks from all over the world, if the scrum in Trafalgar Square last night is anything to go by. Note the link is from the Belfast Telegraph.
Wonga Moments All Over London
I don’t like Wonga and I don’t think I’m alone judging by the excellent press they are getting.
Now they are advertising on the sides of London buses.
I hope that this advertising has the wrong effect from the company’s point of view. It may put the company’s name in the minds of possible punters, but if they don’t need a loan yet, it will also attract them to articles in the media, which is probably a good thing, as I’ve yet to see one that is the least bit positive towards Wonga!
Slogans I’ve seen so far include :-
THIS IS OUR SMALL PRINT
Pay back early, pay less.
How much? How Long? You decide.
Straight talking money.
Need wonga now? Just add .com
All seem to me to be rather too subtle for their target market.
Improving the High Street
I have two High Streets close to me, Upper Street at the Angel in Islington and the Kingsland Road in Dalston.
I would use them more, but the trouble with both of them, is that they are just too cluttered to navigate easily.
At the Angel the problem is chuggers, who always want to stop me. I just make sure, I don’t give to the charities they promote. On the Kingsland Road it’s the endless boards put up to block the pavements by the various money and pound shops.
I’m sure more people would go to the various High Streets in this country, if it was easier to walk between the places you want to go. Because of this, when I go to either the Angel or the Kingsland Road, I usually go to visit a specific place like Waitrose or the station and usually plan my walking route carefully, so I avoid the main road.
It is also interesting to compare the centre of Liverpool, with say Oxford Street. The former is pedestrianised and it is a joy to walk around with no traffic, whereas the second is a nightmare and no wonder it’s such a dump, with just a few good shops, like John Lewis, Selfridges and M & S, standing out from the dross.
I can’t remember the last time, I bought anything in Oxford Street, except at those stores!
Yesterday, Oxford Street had been blocked off and effectively pedestrianised and it was so much better.
An RF Bus and the Wombles
The only obstruction was this RF or Regal Four bus and the Wombles.
I didn’t actually buy anything though.
On the subject of buses, which are very important in getting people to the shops, at The Angel, they have two big lay-bys on either side of the road, which accommodate the bus stops. So if I’m going to say Waitrose, it’s just get off the 38, 56 or 73 bus, walk across the road on a light-controlled crossing and then I’ve just a few metres from the shop. Going home, I don’t even have to cross the road and just walk down a few steps to the bus stop. The system works well and could probably be implemented in many places. But then they’ve lost a few car parking spaces. But then how many normal unselfish people drive in Islington?
They could certainly improve the bus access and walking routes on the Kingsland Road, which would probably improve the interchange between the two Dalston stations.
The problem in both these High Streets, is that they can be improved, but usually the motorist is the one to be inconvenienced. I should say, that in both places, there are car parks, close to the High Streets.
The Anonymous Widower 