AIBU - council and bus lane (WITH DIAGRAM)

[Rapidmama]

A - is a one way road

B - is the unofficial turning road

C - main thoroughfare through town and ends up at the other side of town.

The council put a bus lane over a tiny part of the beginning of C road. If you are driving down A you can no longer go down C. You have to drive down A which takes you completely out of the way of C and that side of town. Council have made a fortune from people driving over the bus lane without realising.

People quickly realised they could drive down A, turn around in B road, go back up A and then drive down C without going over the bus lane. It became local practice, but at heavy traffic would cause problems with people waiting to turn.

Council have now installed bollards to stop people turning so easily (they still do)

Due to the way roads are in town if you need to end up down C but you don’t want to turn, you need to add another 10/15 mins to your journey which would usually take 30 secs to get to the end of C.

Locals are outraged, it makes no sense to put a bus lane on C as the same amount of cars are still using C by just turning on B. Even the police and taxis turn on B.

Are the council BU? Or drivers?

Does B join C at the other end of it?

No. B has a dead end at an art gallery.

People are just using the mouth of B to pull a U turn and then go down C without crossing the bus lane

Fabulous diagram.
The local council are inept or willingly making things difficult. Ask your local councillors to get involved.
Surely the local newspaper will be interested?

Due to the way roads are in town if you need to end up down C but you don’t want to turn, you need to add another 10/15 mins to your journey which would usually take 30 secs to get to the end of C.

add to that the environmental effect

Locals are outraged, it makes no sense to put a bus lane on C as the same amount of cars are still using C by just turning on B. Even the police and taxis turn on B.
what are the locals outraged about? is it the bollards? if so, yes that's good

does your local MP have a facebook / twitter profile? get something on there

Is this Brighton?

Brighton council create bus lanes and have traffic schemes which seem entirely designed to a) take you the long way round, regardless of where you're going and b) create more congestion, because cars are going along roads they wouldn't need to, if they weren't forced to go the long way round.

Understandably, they want everyone to use public transport, but that's not a lot of good if you live somewhere where public transport is virtually non-existent and/or hideously expensive.

Colchester council do like to bugger up their roads.
Wankers

Based on the diagram it's hard to see the point of the bus lane at all. Cars coming down A and turning into B wouldn't have to give way and cause delays to buses etc. anyway due to the one way system. On the face of it, it seems obvious this would cause more congestion due to people turning etc.

@Filler44, I knew someone would recognise it

Yes! It makes no difference to congestion, purely money making from people going through the bloody bus lane

It was obvious from the start that everyone would just U turn down B, they refused to listen

It'll be denied vigorously (for what it's worth ...) but local authority policy over the past 25 years has been not to do anything that encourages private motoring.

Anyone who has sat at a junction and noticed how the pedestrian and junction lights appear to be "accidentally" out of phase to reduce the cars passing through the junction will immediately know this.

The official answer to the OP would be they should be using public transport to help the environment.

Threaten to sue them?

I’d LOVE to, not sure I’d have grounds though

Environmental impact is a good shout though