Every time I read about the daft idea of ripping up a railway line and building a long distance busway, I always get the feeling that it will be a disaster. Yes I know there have been successful busways in anumber of towns, Leeds & ipswich to name a couple of them, but these have nearly always been for a short distance, often less than a mile and are split by road junctions.
The best form of long distance commutting is rail, either heavy rail, like the the line that was in place between Cambridge & St Ives (before the Cambrifgeshire guided busway fiasco) and the planned fiasco between Luton & Dunstable. Both of these two lines could have been electrified and intergrated with their local commuter lines.
The Luton to Dunstable line with the new Thameslink developments, giving much better oppotunities for travel, and the Cambridge to St Ives line, if exteneded to Huntindon, would not only have given a good relief route to the ECML, but again intigrated witht he West Anglia services.
If not the heavey rail concept then at least do it has a light rail system, which if set up correctly will beat a guided busway hands down. All that the pilliock politiacns needed to do was to see how well such systems work in Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham & Croyden. All of which use prioritised street running.
Sad to say based on how well the Council has done in Cambridgeshire, where they also ignore what the public wanted, I mush assume that the Luton to Dunstable guided busway will be another total fiasco. It is about time we fetched in binding referendums into this country, as they have in Switzerland, then the option the public choose, is the one they get and the one they have to pay for. Descision as inportant as a decent transport system are FAR TO IMPORTANT to be left to short term looking politicans, who usually can only see as far as the next election, of what ever party.
Lets hope there is an outbreak of common sense in South Bedfordshire, but don't hold your breath.
