London Transport- Bus Plans

[mrshoho]

For a while now I've been wondering what the plan is for public transport in September when schools and colleges return and how they will handle SD with hundreds of thousands of extra passengers during rush hour. At the moment doubledeckers are limited to a max of 30 passengers and when they are full a sign is put on the front to let passengers know to wait for the next one. The plan is that school children will be given priority on every other bus so commuters will likely face some disruption, but fair enough it is important for the school kids to get to school safely on time, so far so good. The LT spokesman then goes on to say that the max limit of 30 will be removed on the bus transporting only school kids. In other words they will all be packed on together. Am I the only one who sees a huge problem brewing? Why the hell are they not saying they are going to increase the number of buses during these very busy times? I know I've highlighted London but is this the plan for the rest of the country as well? Our borough has spent the last two months turning every possible road into single carriage ways and adding cycle lanes. Traffic will be at a standstill and there's a push for as many kids as possible to cycle to school. I'd love for my kids to do that but the dangerous drivers and the casualties I've seen involving cyclists mean it's not happening. Luckily we live close enough that they will be walking every day but the majority of their school community will be travelling by bus and train.

I'm fully aware of the funding inadequacies of our schools and how they are expected to put these mythical SD policies into place with no additional money.

Transportation is going to be a key factor in the success or failure of keeping schools open. Governments national and local could have done so much more at this stage.

Yes I have noticed the big adverts in papers that are aimed at walking or cycling to school. It may be okay for those schools that have very small catchment areas however selective grammars and independents can have huge catchment areas akin to the rural secondaries.

LT buses have a mix of kids and adults. As it is kids are sometimes late as the bus 'drove past them'.

It is going to be chaos.

It's all very well telling children to cycle, but where are those that live in flats supposed to store their bikes, and is there space at schools to lock them up?

My last outer London school of 1200 had space inside the school for 40 bikes plus 10 teacher bikes.

We warned students not to use the bike rack for 20 at the front of the school due to the number of thefts.

@claragolightly

It's all very well telling children to cycle, but where are those that live in flats supposed to store their bikes, and is there space at schools to lock them up?

so true.

And locally here the crime rates for bike theft is skyrocketing. It's become one of the new crime enterprises. Kids were being mugged for their phones but now bikes are cash money.

My daughter plans to walk to school meeting a friend on the way. She used to take the bus but she's decided she'd prefer to walk.

As an aside, we live in a flat and have a communal bike shed outside. You have to double chain your bike to prevent theft, though.

I would be more worried that school buses operated by coach hire firms will not run in September because the companies have gone belly up.

Coach operators are struggling with not enough work - some have already gone into administration. There are enough coaches and drivers underemployed to solve the school run problem. All that is needed is for someone to pay for it.