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Also for the record, here's a quote from a different post by the same parent: > 3) I used to drive to and from work every day. Part of the journey took me alon

Also for the record, here's a quote from a different post by the same parent: > 3) I used to drive to and from work every day. Part of the journey took me along the A4/M4 towards Heathrow. There was a traffic jam every day, going home from work (towards Central London). This busy road had a bus lane. I don't recall ever seeing a bus going past me in that lane, but plenty of black cabs did. I don't see why a black cab should get to skip past the rest of us waiting 20 mins in traffic.

vertex-four 9y ago
Perhaps there are some bus lanes in London that are very very underused and should be turned into regular lanes. Perhaps the people in charge of roads have discovered that if they were to remove that bus lane, the result would be congestion further into the city in a location less able to handle it than a motorway. Perhaps, for operational reasons, the buses absolutely need to be able to bypass traffic on the motorway. As for black cabs, perhaps it would be a complete hassle to implement a "no black cabs" rule for that one road just to avoid upsetting people who chose to drive into London. There's all sorts of potential reasons for that bus lane existing - and there's a very good chance that if someone were to file a FOI request with TfL, they have a report on the potential results of removing that bus lane.
- Symbiote 9y ago
  > Perhaps the people in charge of roads have discovered that if they were to remove that bus lane, the result would be congestion further into the city in a location less able to handle it than a motorway. It's a well-known controversial bus lane, which became a political issue. Anyone complaining about it loses my respect on HN, as they didn't look at the traffic engineering problem, just the Daily Mail hate. The motorway is 3 lanes until the final stretch into London, which has two lanes. The width reduction isn't at a junction, so the extra lane didn't help traffic flow -- it just caused congestion and collisions by making drivers merge. The lane was ended at the preceding junction's slip road, and a bus lane continued for the spare length. This improved journey time for buses (a minority of vehicles, but a decent proportion of people), and also improved journey times for cars! But, the sight of the bus lane annoyed the Tories, so they got rid of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_bus_lane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_bus_lane https://waronthemotorist.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/the-m4-bus-lane/ https://waronthemotorist.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/the-m4-bus... is where I first heard about it (I lived in London at the time, but didn't have a car.)
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    Sounds about right. Major roads in the UK tend to be remarkably well-engineered, and if you can think of doing something to them, there is almost definitely a document explaining the exact repercussions of doing that and how much it'd cost.

vertex-four 9y ago

Perhaps there are some bus lanes in London that are very very underused and should be turned into regular lanes. Perhaps the people in charge of roads have discovered that if they were to remove that bus lane, the result would be congestion further into the city in a location less able to handle it than a motorway. Perhaps, for operational reasons, the buses absolutely need to be able to bypass traffic on the motorway. As for black cabs, perhaps it would be a complete hassle to implement a "no black cabs" rule for that one road just to avoid upsetting people who chose to drive into London. There's all sorts of potential reasons for that bus lane existing - and there's a very good chance that if someone were to file a FOI request with TfL, they have a report on the potential results of removing that bus lane.

Symbiote 9y ago
> Perhaps the people in charge of roads have discovered that if they were to remove that bus lane, the result would be congestion further into the city in a location less able to handle it than a motorway. It's a well-known controversial bus lane, which became a political issue. Anyone complaining about it loses my respect on HN, as they didn't look at the traffic engineering problem, just the Daily Mail hate. The motorway is 3 lanes until the final stretch into London, which has two lanes. The width reduction isn't at a junction, so the extra lane didn't help traffic flow -- it just caused congestion and collisions by making drivers merge. The lane was ended at the preceding junction's slip road, and a bus lane continued for the spare length. This improved journey time for buses (a minority of vehicles, but a decent proportion of people), and also improved journey times for cars! But, the sight of the bus lane annoyed the Tories, so they got rid of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_bus_lane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_bus_lane https://waronthemotorist.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/the-m4-bus-lane/ https://waronthemotorist.wordpress.com/2010/11/22/the-m4-bus... is where I first heard about it (I lived in London at the time, but didn't have a car.)
- vertex-four 9y ago
  Sounds about right. Major roads in the UK tend to be remarkably well-engineered, and if you can think of doing something to them, there is almost definitely a document explaining the exact repercussions of doing that and how much it'd cost.