Last week I told you that a wedge of raised tarmac on Stratford High Street had been removed, immediately adjacent to the contraflow beneath the flyover that's never been opened. "All it needs now is a repaint," I said.
Well, that repaint has now happened. I know it may not look like it because the arrow and hatched area are still visible, but unwanted white lines are hard to get rid of.
Previously all eastbound traffic leaving the Bow Roundabout was funnelled into a single lane, leaving space for a contraflow on the right. We now have two eastbound lanes helping traffic flow faster, and as a result the contraflow lane has ceased to exist.
Previously the eastbound lane and contraflow were separated by a double white line but that's been erased and replaced by a single dashed line instead. This stretches all the way up to Marshgate Lane, beyond which it was always two eastbound lanes anyway.
This all sounds great but there are three catches:
i) Bus Stop W at Marshgate Lane is undergoing lengthy bypass works, so a few metres further on all traffic has to funnel down to one lane to get past. This is expected to continue for another month. ii) Newham council are planning some sort of bus priority project along Stratford High Street. This might well mean the left-hand lane is nabbed for buses only, leaving just one lane for all other traffic again. iii) Removal of the contraflow lane may only be an 18 month trial implemented via an Experimental Traffic Management Order, after which Newham will make a decision either to revert or "to convert to legal permanency".
But it does look ever more certain that the contraflow lane is dead and the new road under the flyover will never open, despite having been built at great expense, thus everyone who dug it, fitted traffic lights to it and paid for it has completely wasted their time.
