Turning left off Glencrutchery Road into Ballaquayle Road!

[TheTeapot]

Apart from the tiny bit in front of the airport, is this the first bus lane over here?

[Kopek]

It's a Buses only lane, how many buses are there a day?

[TheTeapot]

South buses are going back to normal frequency tomorrow, so that's 4 an hour, plus 2 Ramsey ones going that way. Don't know if any others go down that road.

[The Dog's Dangly Bits]

14 minutes ago, kevster said:

Is it a permanent bus lane? With the prom being one way the buses from Onchan that normally go down Royal Avenue will be going along there, so more bus traffic than normal.

 

Sorry if that sounds like a sensible reason for it..

It seems logical to me.  If they don't do it then the extra prom traffic that is going to travel down there (given the one way northwards on the prom) would mean two lanes backing up impacting on buses and their time table.  This way the buses can come straight down and will not be held up with cars wanting to turn left who now will only able to filter in there closer to St Ninians.

 

[Roger Mexico]

56 minutes ago, Kopek said:

It's not only a Bus Lane, it's a Buses ONLY lane? So you can't even use it when there aren't any buses in it!!!

One for Jason Moorehouse???

I think I may have discovered what is going on here.  I was about to point out that a particularly odd thing about this was that there are only at most two buses an hour to exclusively use this lane.  But things have changed because we have a new bus route in town.  This is the 30 which announces itself as "the quickest way to travel from Central and Queens Promenades to Lower Douglas and replaces the southbound services".  This is true if you exclude walking (even on the timetable shows an optimistic 20+ minutes).

It's a circular route going North along the Prom and then back along Glencrutchery Road and presumably to stop themselves looking silly[1] they are doing all they can to make them run faster.  And it raises the number of buses using the lane to a whole six an hour. Obviously there are lots of temporary things they could do to tackle this temporary problem, so they have decided to do something elaborate and ineffective instead.

[1]  They will fail.

[Mr Newbie]

27 minutes ago, kevster said:

Sorry if that sounds like a sensible reason for it..

The only problem there is the buses are generally empty as few people use them to commute so all it’s going to do is clog the place up with cars used to get to work stuck behind buses that aren’t actually getting people to work. 

[The Dog's Dangly Bits]

Just now, Mr Newbie said:

The only problem there is the buses are generally empty as few people use them to commute so all it’s going to do is clog the place up with cars stuck behind buses that aren’t actually getting people to work. 

Perhaps it'll encourage people to use buses rather than cars.  

[Mr Newbie]

Just now, The Dog's Dangly Bits said:

Perhaps it'll encourage people to use buses rather than cars.  

But they don’t that’s the point. Few used the buses before Covid and now even with social distancing gone you have the choice of using your own car that only you have been in to go to work or some dirty bus potentially sharing with other people you don’t know. 

[The Dog's Dangly Bits]

The buses are clean and no one has Covid.

Buses need to be run on time.  To do that they need priority.   This gives them that and makes sense.

I suspect more might be using them than you think.

[TheTeapot]

14 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

I think I may have discovered what is going on here.  I was about to point out that a particularly odd thing about this was that there are only at most two buses an hour to exclusively use this lane.  But things have changed because we have a new bus route in town.  This is the 30 which announces itself as "the quickest way to travel from Central and Queens Promenades to Lower Douglas and replaces the southbound services".  This is true if you exclude walking (even on the timetable shows an optimistic 20+ minutes).

It's a circular route going North along the Prom and then back along Glencrutchery Road and presumably to stop themselves looking silly[1] they are doing all they can to make them run faster.  And it raises the number of buses using the lane to a whole six an hour. Obviously there are lots of temporary things they could do to tackle this temporary problem, so they have decided to do something elaborate and ineffective instead.

[1]  They will fail.

So this number 30 bus, does that mean the normal south buses (1, 1A, 1H, 2, 2A, 11, 12 and 12A!!!!) aren't going up round Onchan then?

[Mr Newbie]

7 minutes ago, The Dog's Dangly Bits said:

I suspect more might be using them than you think.

Odd that a poster who in other threads seems to assert the right to scream cross the mountain in contravention to the 40 mph speed limit thinks that the bus is the future and roads should be blocked off to accommodate them. Very few people use the bus to go to work and I’d wager even less now many people are still wary of close proximity social interaction. 

[Roger Mexico]

14 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

So this number 30 bus, does that mean the normal south buses (1, 1A, 1H, 2, 2A, 11, 12 and 12A!!!!) aren't going up round Onchan then?

Well I thought not because the timetable for the 30 says "Connections for buses to Castletown and Port Erin can be made at Victoria Street or Lord Street".  But looking at the timetable they still seem to be running the same service, so that's another four buses along Glencrutchery Road.  It does mean that services to Onchan aren't as cut back after I thought, but I suspect it also means that the 30s will be running even emptier than I thought.  Effectively they're just replacing those shuttle buses along the Prom that nobody used with buses that take even longer.

[kevster]

Surprised no one has mentioned the fact that the bit of road between the two roundabouts at Governors Bridge is one way coming from Onchan. Traffic heading towards Onchan has to use the Dip

[The Dog's Dangly Bits]

8 hours ago, Mr Newbie said:

Odd that a poster who in other threads seems to assert the right to scream cross the mountain in contravention to the 40 mph speed limit thinks that the bus is the future and roads should be blocked off to accommodate them. Very few people use the bus to go to work and I’d wager even less now many people are still wary of close proximity social interaction. 

Nothing odd about it at all really if you actually think about it.

It's important to provide a good public transport system.  Most people would agree with that. 

Your close proximity thing is just silly BS trying to justify a point that has no real validity.

One of the biggest barriers to public transport use is convenience.  If you have a servicr every 10 minuted it'll be used.  It will be far cheaper than driving in and paying to park.  Given you say everyone is doomed and skint then this should be exactly the solution you would support?

 

[Mr Newbie]

27 minutes ago, The Dog's Dangly Bits said:

Your close proximity thing is just silly BS trying to justify a point that has no real validity.

Actually it’s been proven by many recent surveys such as this one. A considerable percentage of the public are fearful of using public transport after this crisis so bus use is likely to be even further down I’d say making this look even more nonsensical than it already is. 

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2020/06/public-transit-coronavirus-risk-london-tube-bus-commute/612988/