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Which is worse: Sat Navs or the Misguided Busway?

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Ivo

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I've got to be honest; the only busway I've ever used is Fastrack around Bluewater. The service there seems efficient (surprisingly so in fact) and the route is well maintained. But on the flip size, the nature of Fastrack is that it seems ideal for an operation of its size - i.e. a couple of medium-sized towns in close proximity to a prominent non-central location with parking issues. And I would argue that this is the ideal scenario for a busway, not that of Cambridge.
 
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radamfi

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In general, I'm not too bothered whether the busway is guided or not. The Dutch don't use guideways although they have automatic barriers and (like Cambridge) have holes in the road which prevent access by car. In the case of Cambridge though, I'm not sure if the railway alignment was wide enough to build a road enabling buses to pass each other at 50 mph. I think an equivalent road would have required more land take.

I also fear that if a normal road was built instead, there would be pressure to convert it for use by general traffic in the future.
 

317666

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Being a Cambridge resident, I do feel the busway is a bit pointless. What would have been wrong with it just being a normal road reserved for buses, which would've been much cheaper and quicker to build? The buses still end up getting caught in traffic in the city centre and in Arbury where they have to use normal roads, so it really isn't that fast or traffic-avoiding at all.

If money had been no objective and I was in charge, it would be a light rail system with vehicles going under the city centre in tunnels, thus avoiding traffic jams completely. If only!
 

Deerfold

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Being a Cambridge resident, I do feel the busway is a bit pointless. What would have been wrong with it just being a normal road reserved for buses, which would've been much cheaper and quicker to build? The buses still end up getting caught in traffic in the city centre and in Arbury where they have to use normal roads, so it really isn't that fast or traffic-avoiding at all.

If money had been no objective and I was in charge, it would be a light rail system with vehicles going under the city centre in tunnels, thus avoiding traffic jams completely. If only!

Indeed, but money wasn't that plentiful - the busway was the only option that was going to be funded. There were problems with the construction of it, but it seems to be working.

I caught the buses on this route several times just before the busway was built and on consecutive days, catching the same bus from Cambridge each day the arrival time at Huntingdon varied by 35 minutes due to traffic on the A14. There were minor delays in the town centres, but nothing compared with the stationary traffic on some days on the A14.
 

Ivo

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I caught the buses on this route several times just before the busway was built and on consecutive days, catching the same bus from Cambridge each day the arrival time at Huntingdon varied by 35 minutes due to traffic on the A14. There were minor delays in the town centres, but nothing compared with the stationary traffic on some days on the A14.

This is a fair point. The A14 can be awful at times, especially when you get a large number of lorries (un)loading simultaneously at Felixstowe and using the A14 to access other parts of the country via the M1/M6. The busway does at least alleviate this.
 

jopsuk

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Being a Cambridge resident, I do feel the busway is a bit pointless. What would have been wrong with it just being a normal road reserved for buses, which would've been much cheaper and quicker to build? The buses still end up getting caught in traffic in the city centre and in Arbury where they have to use normal roads, so it really isn't that fast or traffic-avoiding at all.

If money had been no objective and I was in charge, it would be a light rail system with vehicles going under the city centre in tunnels, thus avoiding traffic jams completely. If only!

The guideway allowed them to build it narrower- buses safely pass each other with a closing speed of 112mph with the wing mirrors almost touching (slight exaggeration) This has meant the after-thought that is the foot/cycleway (originally it was going to be an unpaved service track) is quite generously wide- though for much of the route it could be wide enough to have a decent width footway separate from the cycleway, and it would really help if the damn thing didn't switch sides at half the junctions. Regardless, the cycleway is a superb facility- that wouldn't have been possible with a "bus road".
 
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