00:00The hours when Edinburgh's bus lanes operate could soon be increasing.
00:05A trial is due to start early next year on the route of the number 44 bus between Gillespie Crossroads in Juniper Green and Musselburgh.
00:14It means that instead of operating at peak hours only, Monday to Friday, cars and other traffic would be banned from the lanes for 12 hours a day, every day.
00:24At the moment, most of the city's bus lanes are in force from 7.30am to 9.30am and 4.00pm to 6.30pm and don't operate at weekends.
00:34The new extended operating times are often referred to as 7.00, 7.00, 7.00.
00:39That's 7am to 7pm, seven days a week.
00:44The aim is to give buses greater priority and make bus journeys faster and more reliable,
00:49and so make travel by bus more attractive and encourage people to make the switch from car to bus for many of their regular journeys.
00:59A plan to move all bus lanes in the city to 7.00, 7.00, 7.00 operation produced a mixed response and lots of questions when it was put out to consultation,
01:09so it's being trialled on the 44 route to see how well it works.
01:13The council says there will be extensive monitoring to check whether the change does result in reduced journey times.
01:20The trial will be for 18 months and if it proves successful, the longer operating hours will be rolled out to bus lanes across the city.
Be the first to comment