Fantastic video. I regularly use the busway between St Ives and Cambridge. It’s generally a decent service, however any chance of it keeping to the timetable during peak times is a complete fantasy thanks to the choking traffic in Cambridge city centre. Particularly on Hills Road northbound after the rail station up to the ring road, which you showed in this video. It’s common to sit in complete gridlock here for 15+ minutes in the evening rush. Also worth noting is that the southern section of busway between Addenbrooke’s and the rail station is currently (2023) only in use southbound, with the northbound side fenced off and rather overgrown now, due to fatal collisions between buses and cyclists. This also affects timekeeping for services heading north out of Addenbrooke’s as buses regularly get stuck in a jam around the Long Road / Hills Road junction.
Yes Cambridge traffic is rather bad quite a lot of the time, a rather large flaw with the busway as it doesn’t avoid much of the traffic where it’s worse. And yep, the ‘half’ closure doesn’t help either which doesn’t seem to be going any time soon.
what a contentious idea. many parts of it are perfect to just be rails. Those long stretches of gentle curves being in spec for trams to run at high speeds. But I also see spots where the bus route was routed around existing development- the bridge in the first part and sharp upwards turn would be a pain for a tram to navigate. I feel there could have been a way to navigate the old town given they found a spot for a bus only lane- but I can understand the want not to put rails in. There are certain advantages to this that are understandable- simplifying maintainence- concrete to repair the guideway can just be stocked more of. Parts from buses can be reused for the guideway or regular bus service. I need to see the annual maintenance and fuel costs on this.
it's 2024 now, and a lot has changes to the guided busway... 915 was withdrawn, and 904 has been shortened to Huntingdon. only 2 initial B7RLEs are still servicing the busway, and the other ones are moved to Stagecoach East Midlands or transferred to serve the 904 only. The "greener smarter travel' livery is almost gone now (one left in Scotland), and there are only 2 old busway liveries still in service in local routes. (the other ones are repainted to local) route 5 9:16 and 5A joined the busway series, and the U has broken out to U1 and U2. Whuppet Coaches aot a bunch of Mellor Sigma 12 EVs to replace the Eclipse 2/3s.
It did stay as a rail line. Albeit an unused and unwanted one for the past forty years. The far more flexible guided bus service gave a new purpose to that route.
@@Derek_S A rail link would be too expensive to run and maintain, buses don't require the heavy rolling stock of buses, and buses are easier to interchange from normal use to busway use.
The paved cycle path adjacent to the busway originally only reached Swavesey, due to lack of funding. It was eventually completed through to St Ives with funding from SusTrans, a charity which is the custodian of the National Cycle Network. The cycle path near to the Fen Drayton bus stop featured in the video is very prone to flooding, being down at the level of the adjacent wetland nature reserves, especially in the winter months. This can make the cycle route to St Ives impassable
Wasn't aware of that, thanks for the extra info. Yep certainly has flooding issues, have experienced this first hand in the past. Seems to be a flaw in design. (Sorry completely missed this comment - hence why a reply only came 8 months later)
I’ve been on the busway a couple of times but this was still a really nice video to watch! One thing I hadn’t noticed was that junction for the future extension
Thanks! It was put in place since it was built, but only in the past year or so did it have the road extending from it. Be interesting to see when it opens up, probably could make another video out of it, although currently I don't know when.
Most bizarre idea I’ve ever known. Could’ve upgraded the existing former rail line to a tram line (like Bury to Manchester for example), built a tramway around Cambridge and then electrified it. Instead they spent obscene amounts on ripping rail out for plain concrete used by inefficient buses! Not to mention it could’ve paved the way to reinventing a more direct freight route from the port of Felixstowe to the midlands.
All the hallmarks of several cosy handshakes with a bus conglomerate with no foresight about the pollution, not only from the combustion engine but tyre dust! All that concrete produced specially as well! Definitely not a system with the environment in mind. Done on the cheap rather than a sustainable long-term system like light-rail/tram.
This is such an incredible video and up here in Scotland, we could certainly do with a busway or two as I think there's potential for improved bus travel journey times and even challenge Scotrail in this format. Regarding the vandalism, it's shocking but there's very little the police or authorities can do about it because no doubt, the offenders have their hoods up and faces covered. I would not be surprised if it was someone similar who removed the Busway vinyls, there's no deterrent and no real crime prevention methods either these days. It's no different around here either because yesterday one of the 6 new Volvo 7900e's, based at Stagecoach West Scotland's Kilmarnock depot has reportedly been vandalised!
Sadly there isn't much we can do it about it. In terms of the vinyl I can't say I'll moan too much about it, as its rather interesting to see. With contactless available on all buses the machines have been out of use for a few years now but they haven't been removed.
Being from the US, I stumbled upon this video after hearing about "car traps" and now knowing what they (or guided buses) were. Now I'm curious, since it wasn't mentioned in this video: do the drivers still have to steer when on the guided portions of the busway or do the guidewheels and sides of the "track" manage to do that?
