Buses-only experiment in Portsmouth hailed as success
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AN important three weeks' experiment in closing off the shopping area in part of Commercial Road, Portsmouth, to all vehicles except buses, ended on Saturday.
It followed an earlier experiment in which all vehicles, including buses, had been excluded from the same section of road.
This diversion, so far as buses were concerned, was aggravated by the necessity for them to carry out a loop working at the northern end in order to take in stops immediately outside the pedestrian area.
It was calculated that this added about one quarter of a mile to each journey and the total mileage involved in such a diversion of many Portsmouth Corporation and Southdown services would amount to no fewer than 100,000 miles per annum.
The second experiment has attracted considei-able interest as a near perfect example of how well this arrangement could be made to work in busy towns and cities. On Friday a party representing BET and THe companies, together with London Transport, visited Portsmouth to see the arrangement working under peak conditions.
At a recent meeting of the Portsmouth Corporation passenger transport committee, general satisfaction was expressed with this experimental arrangement. It was pointed out that, while the buses passing through Commercial Road at a restricted speed of 10 m.p.h. had presented no problems there had also been the further advan
tage of the weight of traffic being eased, particularly at peak hours, by the absence of buses over the alternative route.
One particular feature which had been of great benefit to shoppers was that, with other traffic diverted from Commercial Road, it was possible to restore for the period of the experiment two bus stops which had been removed some years ago because of traffic congestion.
This meant that many shoppers had been able to board and alight nearer the points they wanted. During the last six days of the trial an average of 5,290 passengers a day were taking advantage of the new facility.