Guided Busway Local Liaison Forum

The next meeting of the Liason Forum will be help in Orchard Park Community Centre on Thursday 16th September at 7pm.

I've attached the previous meeting minutes and the agenda for the next meeting.

If you have any "guided busway"-related issues you'd like either myself or any of the other local Councillors to raise please let me know.

20100520 The Busway Local Liaison Forum Meeting Minutes.pdf 28k Download
20100916 The Busway Local Liaison Forum Agenda.pdf 9k Download

Stagecoach Service Changes (April 2010)

Stagecoach have announced changes to their Bus timetables across the City/County from the beginning of April. A complete list of the changes is available here.

Major changes that affect services passing through King's Hedges are:

• B (New Service*): New service on Monday to Saturday evenings and Sunday daytimes between Orchard Park and Cambridge city centre
• Citi 1: Change of route between Addenbrooke’s Hospital and Cherry Hinton to serve Queen Edith’s Way instead of Wulfstan Way
• Citi 2: Change of route between Addenbrooke’s Hospital and Cherry Hinton Road to serve Wulfstan Way instead of Queen Edith’s Way Changes to journeys starting and finishing in Waterbeach
• Citi 4: Monday to Saturday evening and Sunday journeys between Orchard Park and Cambridge city centre withdrawn. Replacement service B from Orchard Park only. Changes to Monday to Saturday evening journeys between Cambridge city centre and Cambourne X9 service provides hourly service Mon – Sat evenings along Milton Road and a Sunday journey into and out of Cambridge

* - It looks like there was some form of agreement that Stagecoach had to start a Guided Bus service (Hence the new "B" Service) by a specific date in April - this despite the rest of the Guided Busway still not being open!

I am aware that many residents were concerned about the changes to the Citi 4 service along Milton Road but it does look like the changes to the X9 service will make up for at least some of the reduction in the Citi 4. As always let me know of any problems.

On Monday I received a members briefing on the current state of play with the Guided Busway, I'll provide a blog post on that with more details as soon as I can!

What's going on?

Usually these posts bring you news; this one just asks a fairly simple question: what is going on with the Guided Busway?

The Guided Busway was supposed to be ready for driver training at the start of November so that the first paying customers could start using this much-delayed service a month later. On Tuesday of this week I was surprised to see that the contractors had blocked the Busway in both directions near the Cambridge Regional College - clearly no training is going to be happening and the timetable for this project looks likely to slip again.

What puzzles me is what exactly is going on. Due to the veil of secrecy the Conservative controlled County Council has thrown over the whole project nobody, least of all the taxpayers who have actually paid for the Busway, have any clue about what's going on. The County Council seems to be locked in a financial dispute with contractors BAM Nuttall and maybe this is in some way connected with their blocking of the guideway.

It's high time the County Council came forward and let the tax payers of this County know what's going on.

More Guided Busway traffic problems...

Hopefully this will be the last time I write that headline!

The team received an email from the County Council highways team about more work on the Guided Busway around Orchard Park (or Arbury Park).

The temporary lights should be gone by the weekend.

The email says:

On behalf of Cambridgeshire County Council, Busway contactor BAM Nuttall Ltd will be carrying out adjustments to the traffic signals at the junction of Kings Hedges Road and Chariot Way. At the same time permanent traffic signals will be installed here for The Busway.
Whilst carrying out some of this work, it will be necessary to operate temporary traffic lights at this junction and reduce Kings Hedges Road, Arbury Road and Chariot Way to a single lane at the approach to the temporary traffic lights.
This work will take place between 20 and 28 October 2009, from 7.30am to 6pm, however the temporary traffic lights will only be in use between 20 and 23 October 2009. They will be in place day and night.

They give contact numbers in case of problems: 01223 716 972 for the County Council, and 01954 785 200 for BAM Nuttall Ltd, the constructors.

As ever give us a call if you want more info, or this causes problems.

Yet more GB works on King's Hedges Road...

Andy Pellew has just warned me that the Guided Busway needs more works on King's Hedges Road between Histon Road and Chariot Way.

The works have to take place at night (between 7pm and 11.30pm) on Thursday and Friday this week. The work is being done at those times as they would cause excessive congestion otherwise. We have been assured that the cutting machines are as quiet as possible.

Local residents should have had a letter warning them of details.

Let us know if this causes any problems or if the work doesn't stop at the scheduled times.

The out of hours noise service is available on 01223 457457 if the machines are not as advertised (although the works have been approved by South Cambs and the City and so this shouldn't be the case!)

More guided busway construction congestion?

The good news is that it looks like the work on the junction at the Milton Road end of the busway is complete. Just a little bit of tidying up to do...

However as one bit of work is finished another will start.

The junction of King's Hedges Road and Histon Road will be subject to reduced traffic flow starting some time next week.

At the Guided Busway local liaison forum last the exact details were not made clear, but I was assured that there would be at least one lane in each direction at the junction.

Tories Won't Face Residents

For the second time one of the Conservative County Councillor's responsible for decisions that affect King's Hedges has refused to attend meetings open to the public in Cambridge.

The County Cabinet member for transport, Tory Matt Bradney and aleading officer have turned down the opportunity to answer questionsat the city's North Area Committee on March 19.

In part this is because they would have been challenged by residents on the decision not to allowthe bus to stop on Histon Road and Milton Road so that "it canprovide a fast reliable service with only limited stops" forpassengers living along the A14 corridor.

The only option for residents is to ask Councillor's to take questions to the closed County meetings.

This follows Tory Martin Curtis' refusal to answer questions on cuts to provision for vulnerable children in Cambridge.

Guided busway meeting Thursday

The next meeting of the County Council's "Guided Busway Local Liaison Forum - Oakington to Cambridge" will be on Thursday at the Meadows Community Centre.

The meeting starts at 7pm. If you wish to attend please contact Neil McGovern or myself in the usual way: the County rules do not allow members of the public but we believe guests of Councillors are allowed.

Give us our Bus Stop back!

The works on the Guided Busway junction for Milton Road have led to the closure of the bus stop with no alternative bus stop provided.

This is causing problems for elderly, ill, or families with young children who rely on this stop.

Cllr McGovern raised this issue at the Guided Busway Local Liaison Forum last night and was told that no suitable alternative site could be found. However the suggestion of a temporary stop on Greenend Rd for the Citi2 service seemed not to have been considered.

Your Focus team have written to Bob Menzies, in charge of the Busway project, and Andy Campbell, the MD of Stagecoach in Cambridge, to ask that the situation be re-examined.

Guided Bus works update

On Tuesday the gantry that lays the the guided busway reached Milton Road. It has now started back towards Longstanton during which time it will make the changes needed at the junctions.

So the good news is that the noisiest stages of construction (ground levelling and guideway laying) are finished as far as this section of the guideway are concerned.

The bad news is that this doesn't mean the work is finished.

Firstly the guideway needs some work. Bob Menzies, the County Council officer in charge of the project tells me that the work so far

"will just leave the stops, guideway infill, cycleway and landscaping
to do. None of which are particularly noisy."

Secondly the work on Milton Road itself continues. This has been delayed by delays in utility companies "diverting the services" (i.e. moving cables and pipes). This is now expected to take another 2 weeks or so according to the representative of Nuttall at last nights Guided Busway Local Liaison Forum. After that there is about 7 more weeks of work.

In the mean time we don't have a bus stop for residents of Lovell Rd. Cllr McGovern has written to Bob Menzies and Stagecoach about this issue. A suggestion that a temporary stop be positioned on Greenend Road was received positively at last night's meeting so watch this space for more news.

Guided busway nearly at King's Hedges

The construction of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway (CGB) is expected to reach the A14 by the weekend. The current schedule will have the Gantry (the machine that places the preformed blocks into position) reaching Milton Road in August, which means that the construction work on the main busway will hit King's Hedges soon.

We already have the start of work on the Milton Road end. This current work is apparently "utility companies excavating for utility diversion" and the construction of a new footpath.

I've just attended a meeting of the "Local Liaison Forum" for the Busway. At this meeting the County officer in charge, Bob Menzies, said that the main disruption caused by the building in other sections was in the ground works: the digging and compression of the land prior to the gantry arriving. Residents of Histon have found other problems as well!

Please get in touch with us if the development causes you any problems and we shall see what can be done to minimise (or better yet stop) the disruption.