Transport Sec Philip Hammond has announced, that on the 24th of December, the M4 buslane which permits motorcycle access, will be suspended for 18 months.
It will be reinstated for the Olympics in 2012, after which it will be scrapped.
This is utter madness and flies in the face of all other government thinking that is attempting to generate ‘modal shift’ and encourage people out of their cars and onto other forms of transport.
This is especially short sighted when it is clear that the reinstating of the buslanes during the Olympics is because traffic levels will be higher, therefore proving that even Philip Hammond acknowledges buslanes enable faster and better flow of people traffic.
Surely it is the movement of people that causes most congestion, so putting lots of them in buses and on motorcycles reduces that congestion.
It appears that some easy political point scoring carries more weight than addressing the traffic and pollution issues in West London. What a great Christmas present for the health of Londoners.