please empty your brain below

The 235 bus route has been extended from its old destination of Brentford County Court, to GWQ (Great West Quarter) -a large new development still being built on the Great West Road, so it seems sometimes TfL change routes early before demand is there. Which I think is good forward planning.
Does anyone know why Stratford City bus station is arranged the way it is, with the single inadequately sheltered stop?

Why don't they set stops in the area of the bus station which runs underneath the shopping centre and is this fully covered?!
I did wonder if the lesser spotted DG would be riding the 308 on its first day. I see I was not wrong but he clearly was out and about earlier than I was. Still thanks for the boost to the Flickr stats ;-)

I agree with you about the traffic lights in the park. The phasing times are ridiculous and there is no sense of bus priority to get buses through junctions faster. Most of the lights could be switched off with the junctions just operating conventionally on a give way basis.

Given the number of services at the bus station has increased I am surprised that another stop has not been brought into use or the shelter enlarged. At least those waiting for the 339 and D8 heading west now have a shelter but still too small for the numbers waiting for buses.
..."who starts a conversation on a bus these days, it's against all social norms" ...i guess this is what cities do to people. We are surrounded by many but have even less people to talk to than if lived in a small town or large village. But now we have the Internet, so can blog and leave comments on blogs. Funny old world huh? There been a few studies about all this for sure...but do wonder what the future holds for us.
Of course you may not have wanted to get into a conversation with the man. But if you did, I can recommend a vague evasive answer. "Did you know that you can't get a train to Victoria from here any more?" My reply would be something like "I thought they had changed something". So I'm not admitting to an ignorance which I didn't have, but I'm not stopping my interlocutor from spilliing whatever beans he has.

Mind you, I'm better at giving advice like that than I am at actually following it.
Strange. The link near the start of the post which should show the route of the 308 mysteriously produces a nice live map of route 38. It's not your link that's wrong, DG, it's some gremlin somewhere else I think.
Maybe the change is a bit early, but isn't there argument for making sure the infrastructure is in place before it's needed. It builds awareness, so that when people do need to make journeys, they're already aware of the route and make good choices?

Most people are probably unaware of changes until they see them on the ground (in the form of signs, and buses running).

London bus routes are seen more like permanent infrastructure, which is good, but consequently it takes time for people to get used to changes. Doing it early avoids the problems of "does this bus go to the Olympic Park", "No, mate, it goes to Leyton" conversations.
That was my first thought, Robert, that advance changes must be good because they allow passengers to become accustomed. But in this case the new route through the Olympic Park serves two bus stops that haven't yet been opened, and show no signs of doing so.

Having seen that poor lady caught out by the change for no good reason, she could have been caught out in exactly the same way in March, but had the benefit of two months of the bus still taking her somewhere useful.
I have to agree with a couple of things said hereabouts.

1. Stratford City Bus Station is horrible. It reminds me of that concrete souless Stratford bus station that used to exist on the other side of the bridge before it was re-built to the brighter more cheery "umbrella" roofed one we have today. Why they had a seperate bus station for a few routes is weired anyway. Surely it would have been better to have had an enlarged Stratford bus station where all routes can be easily interchanged. It's all connected by the bridge to Westfield anyway.

2. The amount of traffic lights along Mountfichet Road and Westfield Ave is ridiculous and I see more are to be added soon. I fail to see what some of them do at all - there to p*** you off I think? Someone must be getting some very nice lunches from the traffic light manufacturers!
The bus station at Westfield White City is also absolutely ridiculous in terms of layout with buses being made to drive around in concentric circles past multiple arrays of traffic lights. Most of the services there terminate (or begin) which makes it not so bad, but the 228 that runs through adds about 5-10 minutes on its journey.

Travelling from the West you can normally in fact alight at White City station (the previous stop) and take a fairly leisurely 5 minute walk down to the bus station to rejoin the same bus!

Is this a Westfield-related trait?
@ Agent Z - I think it would have been difficult to enlarge Stratford Bus Station to take more routes especially as several of them terminate thus requiring set down, stand and departure stop space. Some routes were diverted from City to the main bus station during the Olympics but special measures were put in place to manage stand space etc. The other problem with Stratford is the gyratory which makes it difficult for westbound through routes to serve the bus station unless they go round in a big loop.

More routes will run into the Park in the years to come so getting Westfield to provide bus stands and a bus station was a worthwhile thing to do. The problem at the moment is the lack of comfortable facilities for people waiting. I also wonder just how many stops TfL will be able to squeeze in the City bus station given the D8 and 339 were shoved across the road when they were extended.
@ Paul - in the documents for the proposed expansion of Westfield London there is an acceptance that the road layout is not good. Some of it will be built on as part of the extended centre. This should speed up buses in and out of the bus station.

If you look at many TfL bus station designs you will find they involve some form of loop working with some form of conflict as buses have to cross each other at the entrance / exit. This means traffic light control is needed. Look at Stratford, Edmonton Green and Walthamstow as examples.

The new bus station under construction at Tottenham Hale will be like this and all routes will run through in both directions. This will almost certainly make w/b journeys slower than at present.
dg writes: Thread diverts off-topic here.

Unrelated bus news: I see that "proper" Routemasters are to be withdrawn from Route 9 later this year, partly because passengers are getting confused by the different duties of the conductors on those compared with those on the pastiche Retromasters.

leondaniels.blogspot.com

The good news is that the displaced buses will be used to boost the No15
@ Timbo - interesting you interpret the words about the best buses from the 9 being used as a boost to the 15. Other reactions I've read have assumed the 15H's service level will be unchanged but the best buses (from the 9) will just replace those that are not so good on the 15. It's not terribly clear either way having re-read the blog post.
timbo | 26.01.14 - 6:34 p.m

Sounds omnious. How long before they take them off the 15 as well. I fear it is the begining of the end for the herritage routes and the traditional Routemasters.
Original link doesn't seem to work - try this one.

http://leondaniels.blogspot.co.uk/

yes, "boost" does perhaps give an overoptimistic gloss to the plans for the 15H - perhaps "refresh" might have been a better word.
I've never thought the Retromaster looks much like a real RM: at least not from the front, but there is a sort of resemblance to the FRM. illustrated in that blog.
(from the back the new ones look more like an open-staircase Regent (ST) or Renown (LT) from the 1930s
This looks rather smart!
http://malsfotofile.smugmug.com/HeyshamDocks/Heysham-Docks/27816939_rvssTn#!i=3030202733&k=BTSWP85










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