Missed part one? Read it here!
The Guided Busway, the great innovation for Cambridgeshire’s public transport sysstem. Buses that run on specially built tracks to beat the traffic and on special biofuels to beat pollution. Brilliant. They did it in Adelaide. Apparently we cannot manage it here.
(note abandoned bicycle on busway)
The latest news is that there will be up to a further five years of delays (it’s been going for about five hundred years already). It has costs gajillions of pounds. The whole county is up in arms.
Me? I’m not that bothered because the busway has a cyclepath the whole way along it and makes my travels around Cambridge so much safer. Much rather be cycling along here than along the road.
Although it is probably the most expsensive cyclepath in the world….
I don’t post this purely for international readers to have a good laugh at the lunacy that is British bureaucracy (although that is one reason – seriously if this had been built anywhere else in the world it would have been finished years ago), but rather as an everyday lesson in looking on the bright side.
Life serves lemons and curve balls left right and centre. It throws us off balance. Our innate human natures, our Egos (capital E), make us want to sit down and have a big old moan, a big old cry, a big old shout about it. And that’s OK. Just don’t shout for too long because if you do you might miss the glorious alternative that is right in front of you.
Because who wants to sit on a stinky old bus when you could be cycling along next to this?
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Rachel Hawes, Rachel Hawes. Rachel Hawes said: the misguided bus part two: Missed part one? Read it here! The Guided Busway, the great innovation for Cambridges… http://bit.ly/am38Da [...]
This is so frustrating. I wonder why many of these projects can’t be managed in-house rather than given to private contractors. The company involved shouldn’t be paid a penny until the job is done!!!!
BTW, is the cycle path open the whole length now?
As far as I’m aware the entire path is open although some stretches of it have not been tamaced (sp?) but as long as you’ve got road wheels rather than race wheels it’s fine.
what beautiful cycling paths!!!
wow, five more years though. such a long time!
I had to have a chuckle because I think of all the debacles with our own state government here in Sydney. They do sound like lovely cycle paths though and I truly wish we had safe areas to ride as well. Our current City Mayor is pro cycle paths and is slowly trying to establish them but there’s so much opposition. They’re talking about cyclists having licenses, like a car license, over here. Crazy. I need to get on my bike. Thanks for the inspiration.
Mary – we have sooo much opposition to bikes here too, even though Cambridge is a relatively cycle friendly city. Cars park in half the cyclelanes and drivers want cyclists to pay road tax (because, yeah, bikes cause all those potholes in the road!). We cycle on regardless!!
happy weekend my friend!
xo
Everyone’s up in arms about the poor management and execution of the building project, quite rightly. But the sad thing is that this has now completely obscured the fact that the whole idea was stupid in the first place.
You’ve got a bus which can run on its own special track, or on public roads, right? Sounds great. Except in Cambridgeshire they decided it was the right solution for a transport situation where there was no congestion in the places where the track could be built (the countryside) and plenty of congestion in the places where it couldn’t be built (the city). So we’ve ended up with hundreds of tons of concrete track cutting a swathe through the countryside, where it wasn’t needed (the bus will apparently go no faster on the track than on the roads), and then as soon as it gets to the point where the traffic snarls up, in the city, the track ends and the bus has to join the normal congestion. Genius.
And I say this is sad, because other clueless local authorities around the country are looking at the project and thinking that the only problem with it has been the building mismanagement, which they reckon they won’t have a problem with (ha ha). They’re completely overlooking the fact that the whole idea is normally being proposed for completely the wrong situations.
I’m just off for a lie-down.