Vandalism - arrests made

The Combined Authority is reporting that police were able to make arrests following recent vandalism on the southern section of the Busway. Stagecoach volunteered to run what's being described as a "Trojan bus" - a vehicle whose only passengers were plainclothes police officers - and this was instrumental in leading to arrests of "people participating in anti-social behaviour and breaching nationally set Covid-19 restrictions".

More information can be found in the Combined Authority's news item.

Vandalism at Trumpington

Stagecoach have reported two attacks in recent days on Busway vehicles in the Trumpington area.

The first incident took place at Foster Road in the late afternoon of 17 October. Stagecoach report that children smashed a window. And just yesterday, at around the same time, a vehicle suffered two broken windows when it was the subject of criminal damage by what Stagecoach describe as "youths".

Fortunately, there were no injuries on either occasion, although the vehicles concerned had to be removed from service.

Partial closure on southern section, 25-28 September

 A stretch of the Busway, between Trumpington Park & Ride and the Foster Road stop, will be closed completely from 19.00 on Friday 25 September until Monday 28 September. This is a "complete" closure, so impacts not just on buses and their passengers, but also on pedestrians and cyclists.

There's nothing at present about this closure on the County Council's Busway website (why not???), so this information comes courtesy of a Cambridgeshire Live report - which doesn't specify exactly when the reopening is due to take place.

The closure is to allow upgrade work on the traffic lights controlling the single-track section to be carried out.

Separating buses from cyclists and pedestrians

At a meeting of the Cambridge South Area Committee on 4 June, Councillor Katie Thornburrow proposed the erection of fencing along the stretch between Trumpington Park & Ride and Addenbrooke's Hospital to help keep cyclists and pedestrians separate from buses.

A brief report of the relevant part of that meeting has appeared in the Cambridge Independent.

UPDATE 0940 on 11 June: Less than an hour after I posted the above, the Cambridge News is reporting some sort of collision involving a pedestrian and a guided bus, close to Long Road. Inevitably the details are somewhat sketchy at this point.

Speed sensors

The Cambridge News reports that speed sensors - similar to those positioned on roadsides the length and breadth of the country - have been installed by the side of the Busway, not too far from Trumpington Park and Ride.

This is quite separate from the speed monitoring device which the Council purchased earlier this year - understood to be a mobile device which could be put to use at any point along the Busway.

And that seems to be all there is to say.  Short and sweet, or something.

Trumpington accident

The bus driver who caused an accident on the guided busway near Trumpington on 7 July has been dismissed.
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/guided-busway-crash-driver-sacked-by-stagecoach/story-29620568-detail/story.html

Another accident - Trumpington again

Local media are reporting another accident this morning, between Trumpington and the Park & Ride on a single-decker Route A service. The bus was heading towards the Park & Ride, and had no passengers at the time. The driver is reported to have escaped uninjured.

More on this story from the BBC and Cambridge News (the latter includes a number of photos).

Stagecoach Route R

A year after it was introduced, bus route R, which provides a direct link between Trumpington Park & Ride and Cambridge Rail Station, has been pronounced a success by bus operators Stagecoach.



http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Bus-route-Trumpington-park-ride-Cambridge-railway/story-29202352-detail/story.html

Temporary closure of Foster Road guided bus stop

The bus stop at Foster Road, Trumpington, will be closed in both directions on Saturday 19 September because of engineering works.

Full details can be found here

Signs on (and off) the busway

(1)
In the last week several of these notices have appeared along the length of the busway maintenance track / bridle path / cycleway:

Presumably  asking cyclists to show respect for pedestrians and vice versa.

But most of the signs are mounted high up. About the height of horse riders heads. Is it asking horse riders to show respect for pedestrians and cyclists? Seems unlikely.

A search finds this Twitter article https://twitter.com/gnomeicide/status/574853452414738432  where Richard Taylor says “Cllrs to spend public health cash putting “RESPECT” signs on Cambridge guided busway cycle/pedestrian path”.  Obviously relevant - but I have not found any Council minutes about this.

Anybody know any more?

 (2)

When the busway was built, it was stated that National Cycle Route 51 would be re-routed along the busway. Sure enough, signs soon appeared along the busway with the number 51 on them.

But for the next 3½ years the old signs remained on the route through Fenstanton, Fen Drayton, Swavesey, Longstanton, Oakington, Girton. A few weeks ago these were finally changed to local cycle route 24:

(3)

A new sign has been put up at Swavesey bus-stop by the Swavesey Meridian Magazine, showing a map of the village, and some places of interest.

(4)

I recently found this busy signpost 2/3 of the way through the "public footpath" connecting Trumpington to the busway through the allotments:

The top sign clearly says "Public Footpath". But the bottom one shows cyclists and pedestrians equally and points ahead to the busway (and cycle racks at the bus stop). Are cyclists allowed to ride on this one?

New busway route starts 7 April

A new peak-hour bus route (service R) linking Trumpington park & Ride with Cambridge Rail Station starts tomorrow (7 April).

See article in Cambridge News.

Lighting the Busway - progress, or, Festina lente

Readers with good memories may recall three postings last year concerning proposals to light the southern section of the Busway. Approval was eventually given by the County Council's Economy and Environment Committee on 21 October. Now, there's an item on the Cambridge News website reporting that work on the lighting is "set to be completed before autumn". Whilst in theory "before autumn" could even mean "tomorrow", reading the story rather than the headline shows that it's more reasonable to expect completion in, say, "late summer" - the tender's only recently gone out, contractors aren't expected on site until June, and switch isn't anticipated until September, according to the Council. Still, progress is progress.

Dangers of satnav

Another two instances of the dangers of over reliance on satnav have been reported in the Cambridge News, one on the short single track section of busway near Trumpington, and the other near Histon.

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/London-taxi-driver-red-faced-cab-caught-car-trap/story-25876347-detail/story.html

Lighting the Busway - again

Back in the summer, I reported on proposals to light the Busway's southern section. There's more!

At its meeting on 8 July, the County Council's Economy and Environment Committee deferred any final decision until its 16 September meeting. Then at that meeting discussion was again deferred, this time until the 21 October (it was felt it fitted well with other issues due to be discussed at the October).

So, here it is on the agenda for the committee's 21 October meeting. The associated paperwork contains some interesting stuff - for example, statistics of cyclists and pedestrians using what it describes as the "maintenance track" alongside the Busway. It's proposed that funding comes from developer contributions in the Cambridge Area Transport Corridor Funds.

The report presented to next week's committee explains that the original  - seriously flawed - "preliminary costing" was 

"was carried out at a very early stage before full investigation into the possible lighting solutions for the Busway had been carried out".

[Edited 28 Oct to correct a dreadful typo!]

Lighting the Busway - a follow up

Just a month ago, I posted an entry about proposals to light the southern section of the Busway. I said then that the plans were very much on track. What a difference a month makes!

Yesterday's meeting of the County Council's Economy and Environment Committee considered the proposal. Actually, the proposal covered both the northern and southern city sections. I can't easily summarise the details, but will instead provide a link to the relevant agenda item, and the council officer's report. The key issue, though, is that instead of the £100,000 provisionally set aside in December 2012 for the southern section, detailed costings have come in at £400,000 [sic]. Council officers made clear, though, that there was enough unspent money from the pot of "developer contributions" (the levy that larger developments have to contribute to general infrastructure - NB, that's only my personal definition!) to meet the additional cost.

We'll know exactly what happened at the meeting when the official minutes are posted on the County Council website. But there's no reason to doubt the veracity of the Cambridge News report. Here's a taste:

Cllr Amanda Taylor, who represents Queen Edith’s, said it would improve safety and encourage more people to use the track, but councillors from outside the city expressed misgivings about allocating this much money when streetlamps in their areas were being removed or dimmed.

This prompted Petersfield’s Cllr Ashley Walsh to attack what he described as “petty-minded parochialism”, but Roman Bank and Peckover’s Cllr Alan Lay recalled blackouts during the Second World War and questioned why there was now “a lot of fuss saying we must have lights”.

 Something to keep in mind next time you're cycling in the dark along the southern section.

Lighting the Busway (southern section)

According to a post on County Councillor Amanda Taylor's blog, plans are very much on track (wordplay intended) for lighting to be installed on the Busway, between the railway station and Trumpington, in time for next winter. For more information see Cllr Taylor's blog post.

(PS: I am not related to Cllr Taylor - it's a very common surname!)

Lights for cyclists

A proposal has been made to provide solar lighting for cyclists and walkers on the southern section of the guided busway between Cambrdige Station and Trumpington. See Cambridge News website.

Compensation for loss of gardens at Trumpington

One little known side effect of building the busway is that some land had to be bought from 34 householders in Trumpington, who lost a strip off their gardens. Apparently these people have not yet been paid their compensation money. The affected streets are Lantree Crescent and Cranleigh Close, Trumpington. The County Council says there has been no undue delay on its part, since it deliberately waited to value the land until after the busway was built - this was meant to ensure that not more land than was needed was acquired. (Cambridge News website.)