12 July - Temporarily and permanently, buses are forbidden to use direct routes
Councillor Hinkley (Labour, Belvedere) suggested I should ride on the top deck of a 229 bus
while Abbey Road is closed and it
was still being diverted up New Road and down Heron Hill. She said the views were spectacular.
Earlier this week I was near a Harrow Manorway bus stop when a 229 came along
with no one in the front seats so I hopped on. I won’t mention precisely when
because I don’t want to get the driver into trouble but while ascending New Road
(Photo 1) it encountered the sort of inconsiderate driver all too common around
here and the bus was forced to briefly mount the kerb at low speed. There was an
expensive sounding crunch and I went back later to that spot and saw the scrape in the concrete.
Almost inevitable because for most of New Road the bus must be on the wrong side of the road so it is fortunate that the diversion is scheduled to end today
before there is a more serious accident.
Oh,
hang on a minute. From tomorrow a new double deck route 301 will be ascending New Road every
12 minutes with every likelihood it will meet another coming down.
Probably there will be a few more kerb scrapes or maybe worse.
The possibility could so easily have been avoided if Bexley Council was not so
pig-headed about Knee Hill.
The kink at the top
which prevents the 301 from running that more direct route could so easily have been removed to the benefit of every driver.
But no, Council heads are stuck firmly up their backsides determined to preserve
just a few square feet of the woods because they say it is ancient.
The 301 is intended to provide Bexleyheath residents with a quick route to the
Crossrail station and every time they miss their train by a couple of minutes they
should curse the intransigent jobsworth who decided that their bus must take the longer route.
As it is, it is scheduled to do Bexleyheath to Abbey Wood in between 13 and 16 minutes depending on the time of day.
Murky Depths has the full timetable.
Belvedere’s new industrial area from the top of a diverted 229.