But as Boris has no control of what councils do with their bus lanes you will still have to concentrate as things will get more confusing about bus lane access, not less.
i may be mistaken but i thought it was tfl that runs bus lanes…
if so then what Boris says go.
I know I was vocally against Boris, but here I am eating humble pie.
The only down side I can see is the effects the buses have had on the buslanes being not the ideal for us.
The A23 bus lane, one of the most rutted, and pitholed roads I’ve ever used, and even though I can use it, I tend not to because of this. The road is literally rippled like a river in places. That plus the diesel that is regularly spilled by the buses… this isn’t necessarily the perfect solution. There’s also a lot more paint that gets slippery.
Be careful if this happens.
As far as I’m aware, it’s a little bit more complicated than that. TFL run the “strategic network” - which is pretty much all the green a roads on your map, plus most of the red a roads. All the others are run by the local council. If TFL decide that they are going to let motorbikes into their bus lanes I would imagine it would cover most of them… particularly the ones set up since Red Ken came into power and went bus mad… there will probably be a few bus lanes outside of TFL’s influence, but I would have thought it likely they would eventually follow TFL’s lead.
Johnse 1, I don’t want to patronising, but where have you been since the abolition of a London wide strategic authority. (GLC was the last and that died back in the late 80’s.)
Each local authority will make a value judgement in respect of allowing bikes into bus lanes under their control. “Value judgement” here is a bit ironic as it will depend on how much they are earning from these offences.
I workfor one of these “public service providers” and the bean counters rule, which is one of the reasons I’m taking retirement soon.
I’m sorry old guy, but since July 2000 Transport for London have been responsible for the strategic network (which are almost exclusively red routes) in London. They have the same powers as a Local Authority in relation to those routes including the creation of bus lanes etc.
The power is derived from the Greater London Authority Act 1999, full copy here
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/ACTS/acts1999/ukpga_19990029_en_1
or a much simplified version is here…
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/transport/powers.jsp
They are the strategic authority for all transport in London and have wide ranging powers. Like I said in my post, most bus lanes will be covered by their authority, not the local council, and I would imagine most local council’s will follow their lead.
According to TFL they are only responsible for enforcement of bus lanes on the roads marked as red route on these maps.
That’s true…
You’ll have your work cut out looking for that extra diesel, rutted and rippled road surface (all in addition to the crappy road surface which is London’s streets) and checking whether the lane has a yellow line on the near side or a red one 
“But cyclists claimed that allowing faster motorcycles into bus lanes would put them in danger.”
Well they’d better pay a bit more attention then … ! 
almost all of the bus lanes on major roads will be covered and defintely all the ones I use every day 
Good stuff! Next thing on his agenda should be to get rid of the cycle boxes at the traffic lights so when I pull away I dont have to battle through a gaggle of cyclists who are all trying to get away faster than cars and bikes at a top speed of 10 mph
And then there’s that bloody cycle lane down Lower (Upper?) Thames Street that makes it near impossible to filter legally as it narrows the lanes. Especially since the traffic is always jammed solid in the rush hour anway and so even push bikes leave the cagers standing.
It’s awesome that Boris is planning to do this, but the idiot hardcore cyclist communities are getting very organised to try and prevent it. They’ve already manipulated a poll on the Evening Standard website.
We should all write some supporting emails to Boris and maybe to the Evening Standard to commend them on their great plans! Cycle campaigners are just complete arses when it comes to motorbikes, they will stop at nothing to prevent us from using bus lanes!!
I wrote to Boris as soon as he won and am awaiting a substantive response.
I had already written to Ken before his decision was taken, urging him to accept the original findings of the report, but apart from the acknowledgement the only response I received was that he was considering the report. I received nothing further after the decision was reported that he was not letting us use the bus lanes. I didn’t follow that up as it seemed likely he was going to lose the election.
I had hoped I wouldn’t have to compare the original version of the report with its Livingstone rewrite and learn all about the Tanner Test, but if the cyclists get to Boris then I might have to…
I might contact the cyclist lobbyists themselves as I believe their stance is actually not in their best interests.
yep stand corrected. but apparently large swathes of bus lanes that cover entire boroughs are run by tfl anywaywestminster, newham, parts of southwark.so hopefully the others would just fall into line.
To demonstrate the current/potential chaos there are already bus lanes in Westminster that are owned by Westminster and allow bikes in them, for example on one side of Trafalgar Square.