Following a Freedom of Information Act request, Coventry City Council has revealed that to date, it has conducted absolutely no research whatsoever prior to its planned removal of bus lanes.
This is despite the new council leader George Duggins making it a policy priority, and publicly declaring his intention to have the lanes ripped out from September onwards. The decision is only set to require the approval of Coventry City Council cabinet, and is not currently subject to any further investigation, or scrutiny by a full council meeting, or any other process.
It is already understood that a delegation from Coventry City Council went to visit Liverpool last month, in order to observe the impact of bus lane removal in that city. Despite having a much more comprehensive urban rail network when compared to Coventry, together with its famous ferry services, public transport usage on Merseyside remains low, and it is not regarded as a model by any credible urban mobility experts.
Coventry Bus Lanes – no research
My personal view
If the council had announced a planned review of bus lanes, with a comprehensive analysis of which lanes were working well, which ones were not, and then acting on the review by considering which lanes might be improved, and perhaps as well where there were some bus lanes which weren’t needed, then I doubt that anyone in the city would have any concerns about this.
The problem we have here is that it is blatantly obvious that no such review is taking place – in fact, in accordance with the question as it was asked, it appears that council officers didn’t even know about the Liverpool trip.
Of course, a “study tour” of itself should be welcomed, if it was an act of genuine fact finding, and if the council was also taking the time to have a look at other cities which have an effective network of bus lanes. We know that the council has previously undertaken “study tours” to the Netherlands, but insteead of looking at any number of cities which work, they put all their efforts into visiting totally inappropriate “shared space” junctions in the town of Drachten. We know from the accident data that these junctions do not work at all, and that they are a nightmare for many types of vulnerable road users.
As somebody who uses buses, and obviously somebody who cycles as well, I really don’t think bus lanes are the answer to everything in all places – in fact, far from it. Yet from the point of view of cycling, bus lanes provide a sense of relative protection, especially when compared with a lethal two lane road, where no such facilities exist. This has to be factored into any decision making, along with an analysis of the usage of the lanes by the buses they were intended to serve, just as the council needs to be looking at streets across the whole city, and coming up with a plan to make each one of them safe for every user.
From what we have seen so far, no such analysis has taken place. On a positive note, there is no mention of bus lanes on the agenda for tomorrow’s cabinet meeting. The next one is not until 30th August.
Hopefully the councillors concerned have a few more weeks to think this through before then.
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