World's longest guided busway opens in Cambridge, UK

[buckethead]

Buses have a self-destruct system, so whenever they break down passengers have 10 seconds to get off!

[61653]

£182Million for that! I bet it would've cost less to bring trains back the St. Ives line: before the busway project started, the track was mostly still in place, albeit probably not in great condition. Airdrie-Bathgate cost £300m, and that's a double track electrified line, so surely it would've been no more than the busway, even if they electrified the line, which would make sense as Cambridge is already wired. Guided Busways are stupid at the best of times: still flawed when used in urban areas (such as the schemes in Leeds and Bradford)- Entirely unsuitable for a rural route like St. Ives-Cambridge, even the Luton-Dunstable line would be better reopened as a single track electrified spur with a loop or two: Some of the FCC services that terminate at Luton could extend to Dunstable, problem solved. The St. Ives line could do the same with the portion of the 'Cambridge Cruiser' service that normally detatches at Cambridge anyway- Both those lines could be operated thusly with only 3/4 extra 4-car trainsets tacked onto existing orders, and would be a far more sensible use of money, even if the initial outlay was greater.

[PikkaBird]

Also, what happens when a bus inevitably breaks down on the busway?

That is a very good question, admittedly. Perhaps more road-like busways are better than the guided ones after all.

[FooBar]

That thing opened today? Even if they'd lay one track section a day it should've been done much earlier. I visited that building site in 2007...

They wore even working when I was there

[buckethead]

That's a tiny huge beast.

[Ameecher]

It's been built for ages but the contractor hasn't done the finishing touches and there's been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the bus operator, the council and the contractor. Up until recently it's been a glorified foot and cycle path.

[Kevo00]

Suspect there was some sort of corruption involved with this, and that was why the price tag was so high. Same for Edinburgh trams, which sound like the work of a real world Lyle Lanley. Time for stricter application of ISO contracting standards in the transport industry.

Not entirely clear what the advantage of a guided busway is compared to just building a road and putting up a 'buses only' sign...

[buckethead]

Anyway it could be worse. Where I live they decided 3 years ago to install overhead electric wires on the train line. Took 2 years to put them on, on a 50 km line. And in the end they bought new trains: diesel trains. How about that?(at least the diesels are really nice)

[61653]

Anyway it could be worse. Where I live they decided 3 years ago to install overhead electric wires on the train line. Took 2 years to put them on, on a 50 km line. And in the end they bought new trains: diesel trains. How about that?(at least the diesels are really nice)

Ah, so at least it's not just the Brits who are crap at planning and procurement!

[Comm Cody]

Anyway it could be worse. Where I live they decided 3 years ago to install overhead electric wires on the train line. Took 2 years to put them on, on a 50 km line. And in the end they bought new trains: diesel trains. How about that?(at least the diesels are really nice)

But are the trains on time?

[Geo Ghost]

Also, what happens when a bus inevitably breaks down on the busway?

That is a very good question, admittedly. Perhaps more road-like busways are better than the guided ones after all.

Thunderbird bus in a busway siding somewhere perhaps

[buckethead]

Anyway it could be worse. Where I live they decided 3 years ago to install overhead electric wires on the train line. Took 2 years to put them on, on a 50 km line. And in the end they bought new trains: diesel trains. How about that?(at least the diesels are really nice)

But are the trains on time?

Well the train service in Italy has improved. Since Trenitalia shifted all fast trains on a separate line I think the regional trains are almost always on time, but occasionally there is a train two hours late. My local line instead runs quite well, I travel on it regularly(once-twice a week) and its always pretty much on time, although sometimes I hear everyday commuters say that sometimes its 10 minutes late.

The fleet:

This piece of junk, with the livery of the old train company..

images1.jpg (11.19 KiB) Viewed 1870 times

This piece of junk, BUT WITH NEW COLOURS!

4527.1297236443.tb.jpg (11.12 KiB) Viewed 1870 times

This fairly good but sloooow train.

images.jpg (10.61 KiB) Viewed 1870 times

[John]

Not entirely clear what the advantage of a guided busway is compared to just building a road and putting up a 'buses only' sign...

Width of the road needed.

With a guided bus route you can have buses travel at 60mph with the lanes only 2 foot apart with no danger. Total width is 6m. For a road you need it to be much wider - a width of 9m. Which makes the road too wide to fit on the existing embankments.

[Kevo00]

Not entirely clear what the advantage of a guided busway is compared to just building a road and putting up a 'buses only' sign...

Width of the road needed.

With a guided bus route you can have buses travel at 60mph with the lanes only 2 foot apart with no danger. Total width is 6m. For a road you need it to be much wider - a width of 9m. Which makes the road too wide to fit on the existing embankments.

But then casting these track pieces seems to have been more of an engineering job than some earthworks and an embankment.

[John]

Not really - widening cuttings and embankments can bring a whole host of expensive problems. You can't just place tarmac straight on earth, and you would probably end up in a horrible mess with land purchases.

[JamieLei]

Tbh, I'm the only one of the forum who will live in the busway's vicinity and I've been pretty supportive of it. I have a few friends who live on the busway's route and this will be really convenient.

Regarding laying a train line instead (even a single-track one), as I'm sure that many know, Cambridge's station is (due to the University's desire 100 years ago to prevent students running off to London every weekend) literally in the middle of nowhere. It's 25 mins from the City Centre which makes it completely useless for getting to Cambridge itself from the surrounding areas. Seriously, I'm all for trains but would you really use it if it dumped you half-way across the city from where you needed to be? Plus it will serve the station for those who commute to London anyway, at much higher frequencies than a train.

The busway buses are absolutely fantastic. They're probably some of the few in the country that have air-conditioning, leather seats and free wifi. They'll speed to the outskirts of Cambridge at the same speed a train would, and the traffic is not too bad on the road they'll come in on.

Which brings me to the last point about it. The A14 road is horrendously congested with what should be a semi-motorway in gridlock each morning. Currently the buses between Huntingdon and Cambridge must use the bloody thing each morning, but when the busway opens the times will become far more predictable. There's A LOT of commuter towns along the route, including the new town of Northstowe that's currently under construction so there's plenty of potential to get people out of their cars, and into buses that are equally as comfy as a train.

Whilst I know that it's drastically far more expensive than it should have been, I think there's A LOT of negative talk about what's actually a rather good idea. We'll see after a few months how it compares up

[GurraJG]

Whilst I know that it's drastically far more expensive than it should have been, I think there's A LOT of negative talk about what's actually a rather good idea. We'll see after a few months how it compares up

It's certainly a good idea, and from what I can gather, most people are pleased with the end result (at least that's how Look East makes it out to be), it seems ridiculously expensive, horribly late and is now going to court. Not so good.

[audigex]

The idea is basically good - but what's the necessity for "guided" busways? Would it not have been cheaper and easier to just lay down a concrete road and put signs up saying "buses only" rather than trying to make a sort-of-tram with the extra cost of the buses?

Tram tracks make sense because they're more efficient, I don't see the attraction of a guided busway over a normal bus lane.

[Level Crossing]

Not entirely clear what the advantage of a guided busway is compared to just building a road and putting up a 'buses only' sign...

Width of the road needed.

With a guided bus route you can have buses travel at 60mph with the lanes only 2 foot apart with no danger. Total width is 6m. For a road you need it to be much wider - a width of 9m. Which makes the road too wide to fit on the existing embankments.

[audigex]

Gotcha, I thought I'd already read the first page previously, obviously not. Cheers.

Presumably all that trackwork and the cost of the buses is less than the cost to just widen the embankment by a couple of metres, then?

Edit: Pedant alert, the buses travel at 55mph, not 60mph - presumably due to the fact they have to be limited to 56mph to travel on UK roads?