TfL explain why buses aren’t terminating at Stop F

I’ve passed Lewisham roundabout after 10pm on each of the past two nights and there’s been work going on actually in the middle of it, digging bits of it up and laying large flat metal boards, which is good to see – it really feels like the beginning of the end for SE13’s unwelcome circuitous obstacle.

Meanwhile, today I’ve received an answer to my Freedom of Information request sent in late February to Transport for London – a week before their deadline, which is pretty good I think.

The most pressing question I raised was why all the buses which previous terminated at Lewisham Bus Station, and now stand in the new Thurston Road bus stand area, don’t set down passengers at bus stop F (outside Glass Mill leisure centre) at the end of their route. This would provide a far better interchange with the railway and DLR stations than them terminating opposite Lewisham Police Station (or in some cases around the back of the shopping centre) does.

In my initial big Lewisham Gateway post, I speculated based on little evidence, like some kind of transport-oriented Nick Robinson, as follows:

My best guess is that it was felt that, while the 47 and 225 routes already do the necessary rapid lane-hopping to get from stop F into the right-turn lane to head for Thurston Road, expecting eleven further routes to do this as well would cause problems. (Which then raises the question of why this was the plan in 2006.)

The parallel with Nick Robinson breaks down now TfL have replied to my FoI request, because I was basically correct. Their response to this question, in full, was as follows:

The decision not to use bus stop (F) on Loampit Vale was based on the fact that alighting buses mixing with through buses would not allow enough space and additionally buses terminating at Thurston Road would have to force their way onto the right hand lane to make the right hand turn into Jerrard Street. Originally as part of the development stop (F) was ear marked for mixed use coaches and drop off for taxis, that was part of the decision to fight for stop (F) only being used for buses going through Lewisham towards New Cross and other areas.

Overloading the stop would have an adverse effect of traffic on the roundabout and cause unnecessary pinch points on a section of the highway which is already stretched due to the works. Each individual passenger would have a desire to have the smoothest interchange possible but due to the extent of the works and the need for minimal disruption during a major project it was agreed that through routes only could use the stop.

I can confirm that the decision was taken verbally and therefore we do not hold any documents relating to the changes.

(I suppose that’s one problem at organisations being cut to the bone by austerity – no-one has time to write stuff down.)

It’s interesting to note that the set-down area mentioned in the original development plans was supposedly only meant for coaches and taxis during development – it hopefully now sounds like that won’t be the case and we should perhaps be grateful that at least the through buses are still able to stop there, or at least that’s the message they’d like us to take from this, if I’m reading it correctly.

In making the action of buses having “to force their way onto the right hand lane to make the right hand turn into Jerrard Street” sound so difficult, they overlook the fact that 47 and 225 buses already do this manoeuvre without any problems – but on the other hand it’s easy to believe that up to eleven other routes doing this could cause traffic issues. The fact that none of this has been documented does leave a slight question-mark over how evidence-based this is (no traffic modelling computer program output, for instance?), but perhaps there’s a number of buses per hour pulling across a two-lane road above which it’s ‘common sense’ to those in the business that trouble will follow – and the (peak?) figures I’ve seen (document coming in a future post!) show there’d’ve been 61 terminating buses per hour at that stop on top of the 11 through buses also doing the right-turn manoeuvre and 32 per hour stopping there but not turning right.

So, it sounds like these arrangements are here to stay for the time being. But what other bus stopping arrangements await as the project unfolds? How will pedestrians, taxis and traffic be rerouted as the development work progresses over the next two years? Thanks to my FoI request and TfL, I’m in a position to answer that with reference to a comprehensive 27-month diagrammatic schedule of works – but I don’t have time today. Stay tuned!

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