Big is beautiful
Page 21
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MANY small buses running through residential areas would cause more damage than a few large buses. That is the conclusion of a joint study of problems in South-East London carried out by London Transport and the Greater London Council.
The research team looked at three alternatives to the present bus network :— • Simplifying the present network to allow clock-face timetables to be used and cuttingout confusing route variations.
• Withdrawing all through traffic from 'environmentally sensitive' areas and rerouting bus services along main roads.
• Replacing normal buses through residential areas with single deck midibuses running at higher frequency. The report says that the removal of buses would not result in any significantly greater environmental benefit than if the buses were left and other through general traffic was excluded.
On bus priorities, the report states that there is scope for further bus lanes and other priority measures over and above the present GLC plans. It draws particular attention to the serious consequences for bus services which would result from proposals for substantial closure of roads to general traffic.
Traffic on main roads would increase to such an extent that there would be no realistically available way of insulating buses from the consequent congestion and bus speeds and service reliability would inevitably decline.