MOTORISTS tempted to get out of their cars and dance on the street graves of the soon-to-go bus lanes beware: just around the corner is a potentially more ferocious vehicle attack weapon. 

For ‘son of bus-lanes’, read Red Route Invader.

Mayor Anderson has already backed the idea of a network of Red Routes where stopping even for a moment is illegal, and expensive

No more popping into a shop to buy a newspaper; no more stopping for a moment to drop the kids off at school. Along Red Routes there ain’t no stopping. Period.

Red-Route-SignNot even for a secondThough this isn’t (apparently) the reason, the permanent scrapping of all but four of the city’s 26 bus lanes will rob the city treasury of an annual income of hundreds of thousands of pounds. That’s the money paid in fixed penalties by often unsuspecting drivers entering the tarmaced twilight zones where all but buses, taxis and cycles are banned.

The London-style Red Routes, policed by ANPR number plate recognition cameras, are bound to become an income stream for the council.

There is an obvious logic. Vehicles stopping even briefly, particularly at peak times, on major routes cause hold-ups and delays to everybody.

Whether small shopkeepers, whose livelihoods rely on supplying a daily fix of ciggies, bread and wine to passing trade, will agree remains to be seen.



Details of a city virtually devoid of bus lanes have been published in a report today, ahead of next Friday’s cabinet meeting.

The Lime Street and St John’s Lane bus lanes  - two of the most lucrative – will stay along with several others. The rest will go.

A review of bus lanes has been carried out by transport consultants Mott MacDonald. They make the recommendations about ditching most of them in a 500+ page report which can't have come cheap.

Waiting in the wings, though, is the wider City Transport Plan, to be published in February. This will examine options such as the use of Red Routes, better cycling lanes, junction remodelling, reconfiguring gateway routes to the city centre and public transport.

Inbound and outbound - the bus lane lie of the land

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Staying:  Lime Street (Renshaw  Street) Inbound Bus lane to be re-instated, but just to cover the afternoon peak, except Sundays.

St Johns Lane Inbound Bus lane to be re-instated, but just to cover the afternoon peak except Sundays.

Strand Street  (James  Street right  turn) Outbound Bus lane to be re-instated, but only to cover daytime period.

Strand Street (Southbound) Inbound Bus Lane to be retained.