New - motorbikes in bus lanes
On 5 January, Transport for London made a big change to London’s bus lanes.
These have always been open to buses and bicycles. Now, motorbikes are allowed to use them too.
I have mixed feelings about this (I have two bikes, one a generic mountain bike, the other a Honda CG 125). Actually, when I’m on my mountain bike, I have mixed feelings about sharing a lane with something as big, ugly and potentially damaging to me as a London bus…
On the other hand, it will make getting around by motorbike much easier, and I’ll have to do a lot less filtering (which for those of you who don’t have motorbikes is when you use that space between the lines of traffic to move up in a traffic jam). TfL has even posted a set of maps so I can see which roads are being opened up. (Confusingly, it’s not all bus lanes - some are managed by the individual boroughs and these may remain barred to bikes.)
This is an eighteen month trial, which will be evaluated before making a final decision. So it will be interesting to see whether it’s continued or not. I hope other bikers will remember to ride responsibly - there’s a code of conduct on the Motorcycle Industry Association site.
Not a user of any sort of two-wheeled transport? The trial does have quite a big impact for pedestrians, too. Do take care to watch out for motorbikes in the bus lane when you’re crossing the road!
Photo credit: Les Chatfield on flickr
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