Cambridge Guided Busway - ongoing discussion and updates (merged topic)

[whole diary]

[Cornish Traveller]

  well well what a joke this has become - nearly March and still no sign of the mis-guided busway getting an opening date even announced ! Cambridgeshire County Council look like a complete bunch of clowns now. The bus companies that have purchased new buses for the route are not happy bunnies (Stagecoach reportedly changed a slogan on front of buses to "will I ever be on the guided busway" !!!)

[welshman]

This appears to be the current state of play.

The comments below the article are excellent.

[JayMac]

Thanks for that link, Welshman.

From the comments, it appears that Cambridgeshire has a history of interesting, white elephant, public transport ideas.

Forget stringing up the knitting on the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line), lets revive this techology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracked_Hovercraft

 

[MarkRanger]

Well, here's an update, relating to the true cost of the busway, now at a cool ^161 million. But, say the council, they will get all of the overspend back from the contractors in 4-5 years time.

Oh yes, of course they will.

Now perhaps some people in authority will start to listen to the 'amateurs' who told them that the busway was not the answer

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_home/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=485047

Mark

[Cornish Traveller]

Announced yesterday the government will be stumping up a few million pounds for Luton - Dunstable busway (which seems is not that popular in Dunstable from the news report).  On the same day dispute over Cambridge effort between County Council and the contractor goes public - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8560413.stm and BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) Look East claim Luton will use same contractor !?!
Wonder if Cambridge will open before olympics ?

[caliwag]

Unbelievable...check out the Scottish slang for Bampot on Google...says it all

[grahame]

Wonder if Cambridge will open before olympics ?

Which Olympics?   Weren't they last month? 

Construction started in March 2007 with an opening scheduled in April 2009 - 25 months.   It's now 36 months since construction started - what is the current schedule or estimate?

[eightf48544]

There's a saying "When you are in a hole stop digging".

Time to scrap the whole scheme and shoot anyone whoever suggests another guided busway?

Pity so much money was spent.

[Cornish Traveller]

Wonder if Cambridge will open before olympics ?

Which Olympics?   Weren't they last month? 

Construction started in March 2007 with an opening scheduled in April 2009 - 25 months.   It's now 36 months since construction started - what is the current schedule or estimate?

Latest opening date is now Nov 2010 !!!

[Trowres]

Whatever the merits or otherwise of the Cambridge scheme, I would just like to point out to the the members of this group that conventional rail schemes have run late. Would anyone like to deride / terminate Ebbw Vale on that basis?

[eightf48544]

Was Ebbw Vale 3.5 years late?

[John R]

The main works contract was signed in November 05 and the press release talked about a completion date of 2007. The line was handed over to Network Rail in December 2007 and opened in Feb 08.

So depending on when in 2007 it was meant to open,  anywhere up to a year late, but definitely not 3.5 years.

It will be interesting to see when the station stats are published later this month how popular the line has been in its first complete year (last year's stats only included the first couple of months).

[welshman]

Info published in October 2009 said that there had already been a million passengers after 20 months and that this was ahead of the predicted 4th year usage.

In fact, recent complaints have been about overcrowding at weekends - the usual train is a single 150 set.

[grahame]

Cambidge Guided Busway forecasts are 20,000 journeys per day by 2016.  It will be most interesting to see if they can reach that after about five years within 2 - i.e. if they can parallel the extreme growth of the Ebbw Vale service.

An interesting thought or three:

* If Ebbw Vale grew so much quicker than the forecast, does it mean that the forecast was based on unduely pessimistic predications ... and if it was over-pessimistic in the forecast, how many other otherwise-viable schemes have actually been rejected by undue pessimism?

* As taxpayers, shouldn't we be hoping that the CGB carries the number of people targetted rather than far more (which might have justified a different solution) or far less (which might also point towards another solution)

* Rail ticket sales are pubished.   Does the same apply to guided bus ticket sales?

[caliwag]

Still not open

http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/thebusway/