Red rout: I have the pleasure of living on the A11 - one of London's busy redroutes. It used to be possible to park close to the entrance to my house (in one tiny bay and for no more than 20 minutes and only between the hours of 10am and 4pm), and this proved perfectly adequate for visitors such as the engineer who came to superglue the innards of my washing machine last week. But when I emerged from my front door this morning, telltale specks of red gravel littered along the edge of the pavement indicated that our local parking bay had been erased overnight. In its place stretched an extended bus stop, delimited in bright red tarmac, more than double the length of the bus stop that stood here before. And bloody bendy buses are to blame. Length of a London bendy bus = 18m
Length of my local bus stop yesterday morning = 19m (=1.06 bendies)
Length of my local bus stop this morning = 45m (=2.5 bendies)
Increase in length of bus stop = 26m = 136%
Reduction in parking space = 100%
The 'Flagship Manager' of the 'Bus Priority Team' sent me and my neighbours a letter in June last year to warn us that bus route 25 was about to receive new style 'bendy' buses. He went on to give notice that "the protected road space at the bus stop needs to be increased to enable the bus to pull up alongside the kerb". I assumed that an extended bus stop was imminent, but no roadworks materialised before the new buses were introduced and so the parking bay remained. We've had bendies along Bow Road for more than a year now, and drivers have proved perfectly capable of pulling up to the kerb at the old bus stop with relative ease. But never mind the reality of the situation - last night's bureaucracy-led resurfacing means that these giant articulated buses are now the only vehicles that can park close to my front door. So, er, no visitors please for the foreseeable future (unless you're willing to arrive in discomfort aboard a big red cattletruck).
Red rout: I have the pleasure of living on the A11 - one of London's busy red routes. It used to be possible to park close to the entrance to my house (in one tiny bay and for no more than 20 minutes and only between the hours of 10am and 4pm), and this proved perfectly adequate for visitors such as the engineer who came to superglue the innards of my washing machine last week. But when I emerged from my front door this morning, telltale specks of red gravel littered along the edge of the pavement indicated that our local parking bay had been erased overnight. In its place stretched an extended bus stop, delimited in bright red tarmac, more than double the length of the bus stop that stood here before. And bloody bendy buses are to blame.
