The recent post on the current position regarding the Cambridgeshire guided busway attracted the attention of a site entitled, "The World’s Longest Disused Guided Busway". That site chronicles & collects published articles on the busway, back to 2004. "Disused" is slightly in the invective, for "disused" it is not, as this pertained to the former Cambridge-St Ives railway that the busway will eventually replace. "Unused" would be a better term, though we take the site’s point.
That site considers "The longer that the Guided Bus is delayed, the more the penalty charges rack up against [BAM Nuttall] so despite what it says, is the council really bothered about delays? Furthermore, if the busway will then be loss making when actually running due to lack of passengers and fewer buses, what is the incentive to open it?"
i Noguidedbus.com
Sunday, 25 July 2010
Misguided?
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7 comments:
One cannot help but wonder if this wasteful and expensive white elephant will ever open (or if opened be used)? The ongoing delays in construction coupled with the proposed new town development adjacent to the busway having been cancelled, the envisaged economics for the bus operators are thrown out of the window. Babies and bath water?
The rail line could have been reinvigorated and up and running a long time ago now if the distraction of a busway hadn't found its way into the corporate thinking of the county council. Pity the poor council tax payers of Cambridgeshire!
Sadly this is another example of politicians (local and national) who want to be seen to have a big idea, some sort of big legacy they can leave behind when more often than not something much simpler will often do the job for a lot less money. How often do we see local councils coming up with grand plans for guided busways, trams, underground, even mono-rail systems to try and solve their local transport issues. Often councils will spend a fair amount of money looking at these plans when 99% of them will get nowhere.
We have seen similar issues like this suggested in Plymouth for the big Sherford project - the monorail was one serious suggestion. In the end, if we are lucky we will get a series of bus lanes, maybe even a few miles of bus only roadway, to give buses some priority.
If only councils would look at the bus first to see what can be done to improve things rather than just as a fall back to when grand plans inevitably fail it would save us all a lot of bother and more importantly these days, a lot of money.
DBG, a monorail was also half-heartedly proposed quite recently in Bournemouth…
Of course BAM Nutall may well intend to get out of the penalty charges anyway - some form of 'trumped-up' voluntary liquidation (or similar)?
I'm sure that any large, thinking, company will have a number of subsidiary companies that can suddenly be resuscitated to carry on - without the previous contractual obligations.
Thanks for the mention!
Well publicised passenger tests ran in November 2009 but the busway was then barricaded off with concrete blocks by the contractor to prevent buses running while the many 'issues' are sorted out between them selves and the council. The parties are at loggerheads, hence my label of 'disused'.
The NoGuidedBus website.
Anon "I'm sure that any large, thinking, company will have a number of subsidiary companies that can suddenly be resuscitated to carry on - without the previous contractual obligations."
I found only one associated co under BAM Nutall
BAM Nutall Demolition Limited.
Build em knock em down= potential good business, what?
Anonymous said...
"I found only one associated co under BAM Nutall
BAM Nutall Demolition Limited."
Their website refers to BAM PPP UK Ltd as well, and the Companies House website lists a few others called 'BAM xxx...'. However, it's also quite easy and quick to setup a new company, so I doubt that any such manoeuvre would depend on the existence of a dormant company!
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