New closure of cycle track

The busway cycle track between Histon and Orchard Park will close for a month while repairs are carried out. This is the section of busway affected by the A14 widening works, and has been closed to buses for half a year, with buses diverted meanwhile.
https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/cyclepath-guided-busway-a14-closure-17508409

Yet another weekend, Yet another diversion

This weekend, a different diversion for the A, D and Citi 8 bus services due to the work on Histon A14 roundabout.

Details are here https://www.stagecoachbus.com/service-updates/serviceupdatesarticle?SituationId=ID-19/09/2019-16:20:27:614

However, I would say that the details for the replacement services are, as usual with Stagecoach, vague.

Take this shuttle ‘along the A route between Cambridge City Centre and Orchard Park’. What times does it run and why isn’t it arranged to allow passengers travelling to St Ives to change at Cambridge North. Surely that would make more sense. Specific times for the ‘shuttle’ are needed.

Last night I travelled out of Cambridge on the 22.25 departure for St Ives. After picking up and dropping passengers at the Histon Road stop near Orchard Park, we then diverted through Orchard Park West, Orchard Park East, CRC and Science Park (non-stop, of course), then out along the A10 to the Milton Recycling facility, and in through Impington( a narrow twisty. road), to rejoin the normal route at Histon. This added an extra 15 minutes to the journey time.

Do Stagecoach create a revised timetable to account for these scheduled delays, or do they simply allow the bus service to become chaotic?

In my observations, they generally allow the buses to become chaotic.

I also take issue with Stagecoach over the lack of public information at bus stops about the diversions, particularly the effect this has on travel to/from the Orchard Park stops because of the contra flow route swap between the A/d and B services.

Train companies are penalised for this delays like this. Why not buses?

A14 road closures weekend of 14-17 September

A major road closure on the A14 will mean that Bar Hill buses will be unable to operate along Huntingdon Road.

Instead a shuttle bus service will connect Bar Hill with Longstanton Park & Ride.

Citi5 will run between Bar Hill and Swavesey.

Details here.

Busway passes 6 million

The busway has now carried over 6 million passengers since it opened in 2011.

The Cambridge news quotes Councillor Ian Bates as saying, in effect, that the busway means you don't have to worry about traffic on the A14 and A428. If only that were true!  Has he never travelled on the busway when A14 gridlock has caused gridlock in Huntingdon and St Ives, with knock on effects on buses?

The busway does offer consistent times on the busway section, but off-busway conditions frequently cause problems.

Peter Lee of Whippet is calling for more segregated routes within Cambridge.

Cllr Bates also talks about providing other busway routes in the area, specifically links to the new Alconbury development.

View article here.

A14 upgrade and the Busway

Today's County Council Cabinet meeting also considered the Council's response to the Highways Agency consultation on the A14 upgrade. Buried in the paperwork for this agenda item was the following paragraph:

There is a need to complete an unsigned 2010 agreement with the HA to protect the integrity of Guided Busway services during modifications to the A14 over bridge on the Cambridge Northern Bypass and it is proposed that this be flagged up in the consultation response.

My understanding of this is that there is no statutory protection for the Busway when it passes under a road bridge, in the way that exists for rail lines. So the County Council has to negotiate with the Highways Agency to ensure that work - as and when it's carried out - doesn't prevent Busway services from running. If anyone has a clearer, more informed understanding of the situation, please add a comment.

Chaos on busway

Bus services on the busway were not running according to timetable this morning, presumably as a result of accidents on the A14 and M11.

There is a report about the accidents here.

Travelling from Cambridge to St Ives about 12 noon, I had to wait 25 minutes at New Square before a bus to St Ives appeared (an A). In all that time I did not see a B or a C going in the St Ives direction. While I was waiting, there were no buses heading in the opposite direction either.

Any other busway users affected by this disruption?

How has the guided busway affected traffic on the A14?

It seems that there is no agreement about what the recently published statistics for usage of the A14 mean and why they have declined.

West of Huntingdon, where the A14 doesn't parallel the busway, the decline has been greatest (5%). Maybe that is due to dualling of the A421 between bedford and the M1.

At Fen Drayton, traffic fell by 2.7%, or 2526 vehicles.But Councillor Mike Mason, thinks it's due to the decline in economic activity.

Read about this on the Cambridge News website here.

Busway and traffic levels on A14

An article has appeared in the Cambridge News suggesting that despite the heavy levels of passengers using the busway, traffic on the A14 hasn't declined. Read the article here.

Thanks to Hugh,  who is a regular reader of this blog, for identifying the relevant page on Cambridgeshire County Council's website that contains these figures here and  see the full Traffic Monitoring Report (published 14 May 2013) here.

Delays on busway due to accident on A14

A fatal accident in which  two trucks collided on the A14 between junctions 32 and 33, had a knock on effect from busway passengers this evening. Traffic ground to a halt on Milton Road and buses leaving Cambridge on routes A and C were delayed. I was on the 16.53 from New Square, which did not reach the Science Park until 18.40. Arrival into St Ives was at 19.00, 1 hour 35 minutes late. See report in Cambridge News.

Although the busway has effectively bypassed the Fenstanton-Girton section of the A14, Milton Road is still susceptible to delays when there are problems on the A14. There are few options for buses diverting from their normal route to avoid Milton Road ( e.g. Gilbert Road and Arbury Road) but on this occasion my bus was past Arbury Road before the traffic came to a standstill.  I was not aware of any radio communication between the bus driver and the busway control centre at Longstanton.

The lorry driver killed in the accident has  been named as Richard Plumb (52) from Bury St Edmunds. See Cambridge News.

Northstowe New Town

Today's Hunts Post ( 31 October, page 21) says that building of the new town at Northstowe begins in 2013. 'Northstowe' will be on the old airfield and barracks adjacent to the guided busway between Oakington and Longstanton.

Concerns are expressed about the transport needs of creating the new town, and there is a 'call for more transport facilities to complement the guided busway'. But no specifics are mentioned except that improvements will be made to the A14/B1050 junction at Bar Hill. Those of us who are local to the Cambridge/Bar Hill/St Ives area know what a nightmare the A14 is, and the prosepect of extra traffic from Northstowe adding to the A14's congestion problems is not a pleasing one.

It seems that the next 12 months will be spent in drawing up plans for the development.

The Cambridge News gives more details. Planning permission has been granted for the 1500 houses. The golf course will be built over. There will be a school, shops, sports facility, and community centre. Good news for cyclists is that there will be a cycle way to Bar Hill.

Two local councillors express concerns about the development. Councillor Alex Riley (Longstanton) talks about the local road network is heading for total meltdown. Councillor David Reeves (Oakington)  predicted that traffic could make Northstowe a "laughing stock nationally and a disaster locally".

Busway survey report

One reason the busway got funding was because it was hoped it would attract people out of their cars, and specifically people would switch from driving on the A14 to using the bus.

Cambridgeshire County Council has recently published a report which claims that the busway has taken 600,000 car journeys off the A14. See the Cambridge News website for more details of what the report says.

There is a link to the busway survey report here.

Busway's first birthday - report in News & Crier

Today's  Huntingdon & St Ives News & Crier (9 August, page 19) includes a full page devoted to the busway's first birthday. Chris Havergal asks whether the celebrations are justified. Although the number of journeys ( 2.5 million) in the first year is above target, it includes journeys made in guided buses off the busway, and bus operators do not expect fully to recoup their investments until Northstowe new town is built. Has the busway been 'value for money'? What evidence is there that the busway has reduced traffic on the A14? Finally there is the court case between Cambridgeshire County Council and BAM Nuttall still to be resolved - the case will not start until January 2014.

A similar article can be viewed on the Cambridge News website here.

There are two letters in the News & Crier ( 9 August, page 6) about the Station Road bus stop in St Ives.  Note that this bus stop is still unfinished : the top layer of tar hasn't been added, and there is no shelter.

Comments from readers of this blog welcome. What have been your experiences of the busway?

Expansion to St Ives Park & Ride

St Ives Park & Ride is expected to double in size for 500 to 1000 cars using  part of the £20 million the government has allocated for improvements to the A14 (Hunts Post, 18 January, page 3).

But was the guided busway the right option in the first place? A letter ( page 7) from Tim Phillips, chairman of CAST.IRON, the group that campaigned for reopening the St Ives railway, refutes the arguments made by Roger Cox in the Hunts Post of 11 January. In particular, he questions whether the busway can ever pay back its capital costs. He demonstrates how  the  reopened railway could easily have improved on the poor journey times between Huntingdon and Addenbrooke's the busway offers. He wonders why the busway was extended to Addenbrooke's when there were already 16 buses an hour between Cambridge rail station and the hospital.

Another letter on the same page by William Gibson of Huntingdon says that the busway usage of over a million people show that it is a success and that the railway would have been vulnerable to 10% fare increases, leaves on the line, the wrong kind of snow plus eye-watering car parking charges.

A14 improvements

There is a two page spread in the Hunts Post (16 November, pages 20-21) about thecampaign to have the A14 upgraded between Ellington and Fen Ditton.

Jonathan Djanogly says that although the busway is proving popular, even if every car user on the A14 switched to the busway, traffic would only be reduced by 5% 'hardly a pinprick'.

However, he is suppportive of  the need for the A14 upgrade.

Accident on busway - diversion via A14

A friend told me he'd been on a busway bus on Saturday that had been diverted onto the A14 because of an incident.

All is revealed in today's Hunts Post ( 5 October, page1). There was a cyclist on the bus tracks and he didn't respond to the bus sounding its horn repeatedly. The cyclist had headphones on and therefore couldn't hear the bus. Fortunately he managed to dive off his bike just in time, but the bus ran over the bike crushing it to bits. The bus was damaged too and had to be taken out of service.

A passenger on the bus said 'For a good mile the driver was beeping her horn'. That implies the driver saw the cyclist from some distance away. If that was the case, why did she not slow her bus right down, so as to be able to stop before hitting the bike?

Another accident on the A14

Yesterday it was demonstrated that even the guided bus is not immune to traffic holdups on the A14.

I travelled home on the Service A that was timetabled to leave Trumpington at 16.39. I picked it up at Parkside, where it was running 13 minutes late.  This service normally takes about 8-10 minutes between New Square and the Science Park but traffic was backed up on Milton Road, due to an accident on the A14. Arrival into St Ives was 44 minutes late, a degree of lateness rarely achieved in the 'old days'.

How can time delays for guided buses on Milton road be avoided?

Creating a bus only lane in the out of town direction would help. Unfortunately there isn't much space due to a green verge with trees and a cycle lane. Are there alternative routes guided buses could use to avoid delays on Milton road? For example: Gilbert Road>Carlton Way>Mere Way>Arbury Road>Campkin Road>Kings Hedges Road; or, via Chesterton.

If the Chesterton Railway Station is built, or even if it isn't, what scope might there for providing a bus only road into central Cambridge, through Stourbridge Common, Riverside and Midsummer Common?

Accident on A14

Yesterday, the guided busway's value for providing reliable access to Cambridge was demonstrated when a two lorry accident at Bar Hill casue long delays for motorists, and a knock-on effect on other roads nearby, including the A1 and A428.

My partner took 1 hour 50 minutes to get from St Ives to work at Bar Hill. Two people I kknow who drive to work did not reach work in Cambridge until well after 9am. I heard of a student at a Cambridge sixth form college  who did not get in until after 10am because of the delays.

http://www.huntspost.co.uk/news/latest-news/update_a14_delays_after_accident_near_cambridge_all_lanes_now_re_opened_1_1073059

The busway is of great benefit for certain journeys by bypassing the A14. But it does not address the real problem - that the A14 between Girton and Brampton simply does not have enough capacity.

The traffic from two dual carriageway roads funnes into it at both end, so that east-west and north-south traffic are crammed into its four lanes.

In addition the road has frequent junctions leading to farms and roadside properties. These do not have adequate slip lanes. Even the main junctions have very short acceleration/deceleration lanes.

The village of Lolworth has only one road access - via a one-way junction on the A14.

Bar Hill, a village of about 5000 people, has only one access road and all traffic must funnel in and out via a single roundabout, with two exits - one to the A14 westbound  and the other to a bridge over the A14  from where drivers can go east on the A14 or north to Longstanton and Earith.

As well as being widened to cope with long distance traffic flows, the A14 desperately needs a separate local road paralleling it. And Bar Hill  needs an alternative access road, southwards towards the A428, bypassing Dry Drayton.

But the Government cancelled the improvement scheme on the grounds that it was unaffordable in the current economic climate.

http://www.dft.gov.uk/publications/a14-ellington-to-fen-ditton-information-pack/

Letters about the busway in the Hunts Post

Three letters about the busway in this week's Hunts Post ( 31 August 2011, page 7). First, malfunctioning ticket machines, and a driver unable to give refunds for money lost in a machine that did not issue a ticket. And in the same letter, a comment about drivers sounding the horn as a warning to people using footpath crossings along the route - apparently it is optional, rather than mandatory, and the letter writer is rightly concerned about this hazard as the evenings get darker. My point, in an earlier posting, about bus diversions to make way for the Bank Holiday Market is raised by the owners of a business in Station Road, St Ives. Their concern is to impress on Hunts District Council, that, if the town is to attract visitors using the busway, they need to be dropped off and picked up in the town centre at the bus station. Failure to ensure this may result in 'destruction of retail trade in St Ives'. Finally, a comment about the County Council's claims that the busway would be 'reliable, fast and frequent', and especially that the timings are now slower that the old service 55 via the A14. The writer has noticed, as I have, that the Whippet 1A is often quicker on its old route than the guided buses. And what has happened to the promised extension of the service to Hinchingbrooke Hospital, which helped to justify building the Huntingdon contraflow bus lane?

Monday 8th August - travel to work

I decided to walk from the house to the Park & Ride ( about 4 minutes walk) because I wanted to experience the Route A which goes into Cambridge via Milton Road.

Free copies of the Cambridge News  were being given out at the P&R.

But there were only 6 passengers on board  when we left promptly at 07.38. I thought our speed was higher than yesterday, and we reached Milton Road at 08.00 pretty much on time. The bus called at Swavesey, Longstanton, Oakington and Histon only. No passengers for Fen Drayton Reserve or CRC.

The 0728 service, which has come in from Huntingdon, was running almost 10 minutes late, and we followed it in as far as Orchard Park where it diverged onto the Histon Road route.

I alighted at New Square at 08.09, 2 minutes early, and the bus set off immediately for Addenbrooke's not waiting for a passenger who was quite clearly running to catch it.

So, a punctual journey for me - but what if there had been heavy traffic on Milton Road?

Returning home in the late afternoon, I aimed for the 17.01 Service A which stops at  Parkside. This is very close to where I work. I saw the bus turn the corner as I crossed the end of East Road. But I was just too late. I walked briskly down to Emmanuel Road, and seeing the Service A still sitting at New Square sprinted along the road. It pulled out just as I got to the stop.

Next bus due was the 17.11 Service B. This consisted of 2 double deckers, both almost full to capacity. I boarded the second one which left at 17.15.  The Bridge Street bottleneck slowed us down, and Orchard Park wasn't reached until 17.33 by which time we had lost another 5 minutes. At Longstanton we overtook the other bus, then it caught up with us at St Ives Park & Ride - arrival time 17.51. There we sat for 4 minutes while passengers disembarked and bus officials chatted, I hope about official business. Arrival in St Ives Bus Station was at 17.57. Journey time 42 minutes, plus 4 minutes late start. Total 46 minutes. We had been due in at 17.43.

In the bus station I bumped into a friend waiting for the Needingworth bus. I asked him if the Whippet 1A had passed through. He said, yes, about 5 minutes before. It had passed the New Square stop as I waited.

So the Whippet - via Bar Hill, the A14 and Fenstanton  - took the same time as the new guided bus.

Not good.