TfL To Kick Taxis Out Of "Priority Lanes" To Try To Halt Falling Bus Rider Numbers, By Speeding Up Journeys

 TfL are to introduce a new network of 24 hour priority bus corridor lanes in central London after a sharp decline in bus usage....to help deliver the Mayor Sadiq Khan’s reach his target for 80 per cent of journeys to be made by sustainable transport modes by 2041. 

With e-hail on demand minicab apps trying to price each other out of the market, many passengers are switching away from buses and tubes, into these cheap minicabs who can avoid the most congested routes... adding to even more congestion on so called quiet routes. The situation hasn’t been helped by council planners, with their ridicules new road schemes. 

As buses sit in the congestion, ridership has fallen dramatically with officials at Transport for London blaming slowing traffic speeds caused mainly by their own incompetent traffic planners. 

Despite the Mayor’s fares freeze and the introduction of the hopper fare which allows passengers to take multiple buses for a single fare, the number of bus journeys still fell again in 2018. 

Concerns have been expressed by London Assembly members and passenger watchdog London TravelWatch that TfL and City Hall’s decision to axe and curtail some bus routes will worsen the decline.

A paper to be presented to TfL’s Programmes and Investment Committee next week sets out a number of measures designed to avoid this.

Yet not one word about the affect of the loss of road space to segregated cycle lanes.... also seen to be causing massive gridlock throughout the capital. 

The changes include "developing a core network of reliable bus services in central London, through the provision of bus priority lanes," reviewing bus lane hours in partnership with boroughs, and providing orbital links.

In addition, a "new, holistic" approach to road schemes will be adopted, including a requirement that the needs of bus passengers "must" be considered when drawing up new projects.

We could also see access to more roads, completely lost to the trade on a scale never seen before. 

Source : MayorWatch.co.uk

TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT :

This is bad news for London’s Taxis who up till now have been included in most of central London bus lanes.... this is all about to change with the all new Bus Corridors. 

Not one word so far from the Taxi Trades largest org who recently congratulated the Mayor on doing a fantastic job....

The more militant band of Taxi drivers (ITA), have been protesting in Parliament Square every week since January under the banner "Where Buses Go, Taxi Go", claiming that any exemption is discriminate to disable and vulnerable passengers. 

Yet again the Trades largest org’s General Secretary called the protesters ‘Loonies’ in an apologetic email to TfL’s commissioner Mike Brown. 

In every practical sense these new priority lanes are no more than bus lanes. But looking again at the original statement from City Hall sources, they are not called priority bus lanes, they carefully use the phrase ‘Priority Bus Corridors’.

This is no coincidence. In our opinion it’s because there is case law to protect Taxis having fair use of bus lanes. TfL have purposely changed the name so they can legally exclude Taxis. 

Will you wait and see; a policy that lost us the Bank Junction and could lose is Tottenham Court Road?

Or will you fight ?

Don’t say you haven’t been warned.