After four months of silent rumination, TfL have just published the results of their consultation into re-routing the 25 bus permanently over the Bow flyover. It's been heading that way during the upgrade of Cycle Superhighway 2 to help mitigate delays on the remainder of the route, providing a few express minutes amid a slow roadworks crawl. TfL had wanted to continue the diversion even after works at the Bow Roundabout were complete, to speed journeys through Bow and improve the service for the majority of passengers en route. However this would have meant permanently skipping a bus stop on the Stratford side of the Bow Interchange, and local residents were less than pleased by the prospect of a long walk to another stop, or having to wait for an alternative less frequent less useful bus.
Q6 Do you currently use route 25? Yes 88%, No 7% Q7 Are you in favour of our proposals for route 25? Yes 18% No 79%
Faced by such strong opposition, TfL have listened and decided that the flyover diversion will NOT be made permanent. It'll continue until roadworks are complete, probably in the summer, and then route 25 will return to its ground level route serving Marshgate Lane and the Bow Flyover. Local residents will no longer be unfairly disadvantaged, and people moving into the various new developments along Stratford High Street will not be detrimentally affected. TfL's report also hints that the location of existing bus stops will be reviewed, and future significant changes to the Bow Interchange may provide less contentious ways to optimise bus provision in the area. But no kneejerk sledgehammer option will be implemented, no temporary diversions made irrevocably permanent, which just goes to show that responding to a public consultation does sometimes actually work.
After four months of silent rumination, TfL have just published the results of their consultation into re-routing the 25 bus permanently over the Bow flyover. It's been heading that way during the upgrade of Cycle Superhighway 2 to help mitigate delays on the remainder of the route, providing a few express minutes amid a slow roadworks crawl. TfL had wanted to continue the diversion even after works at the Bow Roundabout were complete, to speed journeys through Bow and improve the service for the majority of passengers en route. However this would have meant permanently skipping a bus stop on the Stratford side of the Bow Interchange, and local residents were less than pleased by the prospect of a long walk to another stop, or having to wait for an alternative less frequent less useful bus.
