If you believe TfL's Cycle Superhighway 2 upgrade page, major roadworks on Bow Road begin in August and end in February. Not so, officially they begin today, with the start of the phased tearing-up of roadway, pavements and street furniture between Harley Grove and the Bow roundabout. And they'll end in January, not February, by which time cyclists will have two long-longed-for segregated lanes, and cars and pedestrians will have less space to get around. The first phase of roadworks have been causing merry hell up near Mile End station, and now it's our turn to bear the brunt at the flyover end. If you drive or catch a bus along Bow Road then expect slower journeys, if you walk then expect to find pedestrian crossings temporarily closed, and if you cycle then expect to have to negotiate narrower lanes and unsafer traffic before the whole thing's complete.
As a very-local resident, TfL have just sent me a letter warning of imminent disruption, which contains the following information about the closure of bus stops. Given that they haven't seen fit to share the same information online (or if they have, it's bloody well hidden), I thought I'd post it here.
Bus stops (eastbound)
• Bus stop A (Bow Church Station) will be temporarily suspended from mid-September for around six weeks[that's going to cause chaos, what with this busy stop being the location of driver changeovers on route 25]
• Bus stop E (Bow Church) will be relocated 50m east and combined with bus stop G (Bow Church)permanently from late October[i.e. the bus stop outside the hairdressers closes, and routes 8 and 488 will then stop (along with the other four buses) opposite the church instead]
• Bus stop Y (Bow Road Station) will be temporarily suspended from early December for around six weeks[this'll be the last bus stop closure, ending mid-January]
• Bus stop M (Bow Flyover) will be closed permanently from from late December[thank you cyclists, you've killed this bus stop off] [we should cope]
Bus stops (westbound)
• Bus stop Z (Bow Road station) will be temporarily suspended from late October for around three weeks[it won't take so long to install a bus stop bypass on the wide pavement outside the Magistrates' Court]
• Bus stops J, K and L (Bow Church) will be temporarily suspended from late October for around three weeks[that's the same three weeks as above, so expect the bus stop outside the DLR to be very busy]
• Bus stop B (Bow Church Station) will be temporarily suspended from early November for around three weeks[the westbound bus stops seem to need a lot less re-engineering than the eastbound]
