Forum Topic

Bus Gate non-sense..

..apologies if done ( to death ) elsewhere however has anyone made any credible case for why its there and what its supposed to do? I get that ( in principle) a cycle lane is safer, however last night i walked alongside a row of slow moving traffic that started at the end of the bridge and moved maybe two-three  cars at a time- in that time not a single bus passed. one cyclist ( in the middle of the road) one drug dealing e-scooter and one normal scooter- the walk is maybe 3-4 minutes.  At the traffic lights, there's no traffic of note going across ( from acton lane ) or the other side...maybe 4-5 cars tops- coming out of town, the same - the other side of the lights the traffic as clear all the way up to next set of lights. In the good old days the bus lane went practically up to the lights so there's no way they canm argue that bus times are any quicker( especially as there was no bus at the time)  So , i present you a(nother) Hounslow/TFL traffic cock up and pollution /congestion/irritation system , paid for by us mugs , with no discernable positives apart from keeping the council and conway road diggers happy...what am i missing  ????ideas on a postcard please...!?

Tim Garfoot ● 2162d13 Comments

what's does a drug dealing e-scooter look like? and how do you flag one down?

Richard Potts ● 2162d

phone strapped to each ear and another in the hand while escootering shouting " im just round the corner innit"  I dont think we was dropping of flowers to his grandma ..

Tim Garfoot ● 2162d

I watched the CHR/Acton Lane bus gate for a while yesterday and a couple of buses did come up the inside of the held back eastbound traffic to get to the main traffic lights sooner, which is presumably the point of the thing. The bus gate lights appeared to be synchronised with the main lights, so the queue of traffic is presumably much the same as it would be without the gate, but further back. Unusually, very little traffic was trying to pull across into the shortened left turn lane, probably because of the road works blocking the railway bridge.

Peter Evans ● 2161d

Richard, Tim is spot on and glad others realise what's going on.

Janice Evans ● 2161d

At the moment these traffic lights are set to about 20" for east/west CHR traffic and about 60" for north/south Acton Lane traffic, with another 20" for the all-pedestrian phase.  So that's a 4:1 stop:go ratio. I don't know if this is normal, but it's certainly creating a big queue back towards the Chiswick roundabout, presumably with the intention of reducing the flow into CHR itself. There's more north bound and left/right turning traffic off CHR now as the road works blocking the railway bridge by CP station have just gone.

Peter Evans ● 2160d

The whole point of this bus gate is to throttle back traffic and try and prevent gridlock on the central area of the High Road, which TFL are clearly expecting. Buses did not have a problem at this junction before, and though busy this junction did cope. But not it will be overwhelmed with the added traffic, and the bus gate reduces eastbound capacity by around half. This makes it much harder to access Acton lane as well.Traffic pre Lockdown 2 was diverting down side roads such as Marlborough and then onto Wellesley Road to reach Sutton Lane or Heathfield Terrace. So to force through the cheap version of CS9, TFL are creating congestion and pollution in residential areas, as well as diverting traffic onto the unsegregated section of CS9.To suggest this is incompetent is an understatement. Remember there are no air quality monitors here and TFL only measures bus reliability, so there is no recording of the general congestion it causes, allowing TFL to claim CS9 is a success.

Paul Green ● 2160d

It did seem an odd addition to the temporary cycle way project when announced as it was not on the route and had nothing to do with cycles.The chances are the bus division of TfL said no initially to the loss of their bus lanes on the High Raod and were offered this to make them agree to a trial of the scheme with the reassurance it would be retained if and when the temporary cycleway is scrapped.

Francis Rowe ● 2158d

Feel sorry for bus drivers right now as understand it is a stressful job at best of times.

Janice Evans ● 2158d

Francis, I very much doubt this was a request from the bus companies, the loss of the bus lanes is really an issue only westbound. Eastbound buses after Acton Lane junction all stop anyway at Sainsburys, so any advantage over traffic is lost then. Buses did not have any issues at this junction, and if temp CS9 is scrapped there is no point to it.As I said, I very much believe it is simply to hold traffic back from the central stretch of the High Road, as TFL are terrified of the gridlock. The fact that it diverts traffic onto residential roads and CS9, as well as making it even harder for locals and trades to access north Chiswick is tough.

Paul Green ● 2158d

You may well be right. The current arrangement does seem to effectively throttle traffic entering the central section of the High Road effectively moving part of the tailback further east.What I don't understand is how the bus companies and the part of TfL responsible for buses seem to have lost so much influence in policy making. A few years ago they were at the centre of transport policy which made sense as the bus network was one way that you could expand the capacity of public transport in the short term. However, since then we have seen a big reduction in provision, particularly in Chiswick which has experienced a 30% drop in service and now the buses have been obliged to hand over their exclusive lanes which has had an obvious negative impact on the service. Strategically the relegation in priority for this service seems to make no sense.

Francis Rowe ● 2156d

Although it might slow traffic getting to the centre of Chiswick High Road it may increase the number of vehicles. I think quite a significant proportion of drivers are confused by the signs which they think mean the left turn is no longer possible after the bus gate which means they don't turn off there but carry on along the High Road to Turnham Green Terrace.

Anita Blake ● 2156d

Having been back to this junction more recently I think that the issue is less to do with the bus gate than the phasing of the lights. The green phase for traffic on Chiswick High Road seems to be much shorter than it was.This probably is to reduce the length of queues that were developing along Acton Lane right back up to South Parade because of the Fishers Lane and Turnham Green Terrace closure.Now that TGT is reopened the queues might not be as bad if they fiddled with the phasing again to reduce the queues leading up to the bus gate. However, they probably know that there are generally going to be queues further up.If I am approaching Chiswick from the A4 the SatNav is either directing me up the North Circular and round via Bollo Lane, Acton Lane and South Parade or all the way to the Hogarth Roundabout and then up Devonshire Road.

Francis Rowe ● 2149d

Francis, the new bus gate is a good insight into the desparation of TFL to make CS9 workBefore a meeting in the business park (outside of course!), I got a coffee from the Italians and spent a few minutes watching it. So there are some key points. The overall green phase for the eastbound junction is a bit over 20 seconds, same as westbound which is sumultaneous, and roughly the same for Acton Lane/ Sutton LaneBut, and its a big but. The lights at the junction go green first, then the new set at the bus gate go green a few seconds later. It then takes a while for the front vehicles to reach the actual junction. So roughly 10 seconds are lost before non-bus traffic can progress through the junection.So we lose roughly half the time for traffic to use the junction. But its even worse, because the bus gate makes traffic queue in a single file, with the left turn filter lane empty. So whereas previously you had a longer left turn filter that was full of traffic, as well as the straight ahead lane full of traffic waiting on red. Now you have traffic needing to filter left or straight on from the single queues.So my non-scientific estimate is around a 60-70% fall in the number of vehicles able to cross in a green eastbound signal.It should not be a surprise I see many more cars and vans turning off the High Road and cutting down onto Wellesley Road. Diverting more traffic onto residential roads and the CS9 route don't seem to matter to TFL, as much as throttling back traffic from the central stretch of the High Road. Also makes it much harder for residents and trade to access north Chiswick.

Paul Green ● 2148d