Bus lanes in High Barnet and Whetstone to speed passenger journey times — but “would cause traffic congestion”
Installing bus lanes in Barnet High Street between the junction with Meadway and the parish church is one of the projects which Transport for London hopes to complete by March 2025.
Two other schemes being proposed are bus lanes on the High Road (A1000) through North Finchley and Whetstone and a bus lane on Cat Hill in East Barnet.
TfL is currently in the process of installing new bus lanes on major roads in and around South London and has started consultations with London boroughs such as Barnet Council about schemes to be undertaken during the 2024-25 financial year.
In line with government’s funding settlement, TfL’s target is to create 25km of new bus lanes by March 31, 2025, and the first 10km are due to have been installed by the spring of this year.
A campaign against the installation of these “unwanted bus lanes” has been launched by the Chipping Barnet Conservative MP Theresa Villiers (see above) and the Barnet Vale Conservative Barnet Council David Longstaff.
They say the introduction of bus lanes on Whetstone High Road and Barnet High Street will lead to significant traffic congestion and harm local businesses by the removal of on-street parking.
A petition launched by Ms Villiers has already attracted over 2,000 signatures.
She accuses Barnet’s Labour controlled council and Sadiq Khan, the Labour Mayor of London, of disregarding the views of local residents and failing to meet their needs by planning to spend £1.6 million on disruptive bus lanes rather than repairing potholes.
So far TfL’s website gives no indication that the A1000, Barnet High Street and Cat Hill are included in the projects to be delivered in 2024-25.
All that is said officially is that TfL’s officers began discussions on future schemes with the London boroughs in November 2022 and once they had been concluded staff would move into the design stage.
Because of the lack of publicly available data, Ms Villiers submitted a Freedom of Information request to Barnet Council and the council’s reply revealed there are 14 schemes proposed by TfL proposed within the borough for new bus and cycle lanes.
They include:
Bus lanes, A1000 Barnet High Street, Wood Street to Meadway, extent and details to be determined, 2024-25
Bus lanes, A1000 High Road (Whetstone and North Finchley) between St Margaret’s Avenue and Ravensdale Avenue, extent and details to be determined, 2024-25
Bus lane, Cat Hill, extent and details to be determined, 2024-25.
Bus lane, Ballards Lane, approach to North Finchley, extent and details to be determined, 2024-25
While not giving any details itself, TfL says that is assessing suitable sites for bus lanes to be delivered between now and March 2025.
Local conditions will be examined, such as lane widths, and the aim will be to deliver value for many. TfL is targeting locations with a high volume of bus passengers and those where speeds have noticeably declined.
TfL hopes to make bus journey times ten per cent quicker than they were in 2015 and research has shown that a 1 per cent improvement in journey times leads to a 0.6 per cent increase in demand.
By mid-December TfL had delivered 2.8 km of new bus lanes out of the 10 km due for delivery by the spring of 2024.
Among the schemes currently being installed are new bus lanes on Brighton Road, Croydon; Bromley Road, Lewisham; the New Kent Road and Stamford Hill.
19 thoughts on “Bus lanes in High Barnet and Whetstone to speed passenger journey times — but “would cause traffic congestion””
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I can see your point regarding a certain tory MP, but the fact that a FOI request was required to get some of this information should be enough to sound the alarm bells.
Based on their recent behaviour and policies, this seems to be how TfL and Sadiq Khan operates. Do everything behind closed doors, then impose it on the public whether they agree to it or not. We might see the proposals, but I suspect only once they’ve already made their decision in private. Just as they did when they cancelled the original 84 bus route; or sent 384 buses down Salisbury Road, which ended up destroying the road.
The response to the FOI request states: “We are currently conducting traffic modelling for the designs. Once this is complete we can understand queuing and saturation at junctions. We will then require edits of the design, statutory engagement and a road safety audit stage 1 to be completed. Currently we predict we will be able to share suitable designs in May 2024.” Wouldn’t it make sense to see what is actually proposed before drumming up a campaign against it? Or might this ‘campaign’ just be a desperate attempt to generate publicity for an MP likely to lose her seat in the next election?
For the obvious reason that buses are being held up traffic congestion, not by the speed limit. Average traffic speeds in London are generally below 20mph, slower nearer the centre.
I can understand the differences in opinion, though struggle with the “anti-democratic” notion. Please elaborate? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy
Do we all agree that there is too much traffic on High Street / Wood Street and Barnet Hill? A number of measures should be introduced to better enable access to shops while reducing transit traffic.
Most car trips are with a single passenger and very short (https://content.tfl.gov.uk/technical-note-14-who-travels-by-car-in-london.pdf). Alternatives to cars should be prioritised.
This will destroy whetstone high road . It’s hard enough to park already . There is no Consideration for the future of independent retailers
How can bus journey times speed up by 10% when speed limits are being reduced by 33%?
I would say the people in this comments section are being perfectly reasonable and not at all hysterical.
It’s patently obvious to most of us that when they start imposing upon us rather than serving us that our democracy is hanging by a thread. And good luck with a “consultation process”. Salisbury Road residents will tell you that their decision has already been made before they even get to a public consultation. They just have to make it look like they followed the proper procedure, which is the only reason they’ll even bother.
And you might think a few bus lanes are nothing to get too concerned about, but there’s a long term play here. As I said before, we have a self-serving Mayor who appears to be trying to increase the asking price of the TfL before they inevitably re-privatise it. And then there’s the expansion of London using the M25 as the border, which is what people were concerned they’d do when they first built it in the 1970s.
Is that what’s happening here with these new bus lane proposals in Barnet? Who knows. We’re at least allowed to have a grown-up discussion about it without the two of you, living in your echo chamber, criticizing others for having a point of view.
Some investment in Barnet would surely be a good thing and very clearly needed.
Barnet certainly needs new separate safe bike lanes, I gave up commuting by bike a while ago as it feels so unsafe. So surely new bus and bike lanes is something we should be happy to get. It really is a no brainer give people the chance to cycle safely and improve public transport and there will be less cars on the road for everyone who wants to drive.
It is clearly now being turned into another culture war issue to divide people by our local MP. So tired of this form of politics where you do nothing for years and then spend huge amounts of time blaming others or creating fake enemies to blame for why everything has got visibly worse in the last 10 years+ Take some responsibility, for all my time in Barnet we have had a Tory MP, a Tory government and until last year a Tory council. Yet it seems that all issues are down to our mayor who in reality has very little power or ability to raise funds etc… If the roads are full of pot holes (which they are) then why has our MP and her government done nothing about funding repairs for the last 13 years.
+1 agree. i’m baffled by the hysterical comments on here
you’re moving because of a bus lane? seriously?
Barnet already has insufficient space for all the car drivers and their cars – and that’s set to get worse. Barnet also has insufficient space for predict-and-provide road-building. Therefore it makes sense to incentivise other forms of transport.
Is that the royal we? I’m a Barnet resident, a driver and a bus user and can see there could be a valid case for a bus lane here. I will quite happily wait and see what the proposals are before I start waving placards around.
Most of the traffic jams particularly on the northbound side are caused by people cutting in and out to get round the bus stops. It might run more smoothly with some bus lanes in stopping that from happening. As always – the devil will be in the detail.
Unless I’ve got it very wrong, there will be a consultation period, and we will have the opportunity to feed this back to TFL and the council.
We don’t need or want Bus lanes in Barnet
Poor Barnet, so very worrying, but I regret having to say after 65 years here “time to move”. Very sad.
I’m not on any form of social media, I’m simply observing Khan’s behaviour and his policies from the point of view of a resident of Barnet (and I do indeed vote every chance I get), and they seem self-serving and anti-democratic to me.
Couldn’t agree more.
What amazes me is that Genghis Khan is still way ahead in the polls.
I have a theory why though. As he introduces more and more loony policies more and more sensible people leave London to live elsewhere.
What are you on about AB? Dictatorship? There’s an election in May, use your vote wisely I suggest. Step away from the social media – and consider the Conservative government that Theresa Villiers supports that’s squeezed TFL to breaking point for political benefit, and then put up a plainly incompentent candidate to run for mayor.
On the actual topic at hand, heaven forbid, we could have a sensible conversation about local transport (like, can the council do something to stop the high street being dug up over and over again with badly implemented temporary light schemes being used). I could perceive a short bus lane between Meadway and Wood Street might actually smooth the traffic flow a little bit because then people would stop cutting in and out all the time there. But no, the poor little motorist feels attacked so something simply must be done! We’ve got to stop the tyranny of public transport that so many rely on! According to David Longstaff buses are the cause of all High Barnet’s traffic woes. Give me a break.
Yes well said, no one listens to the residents who spend their hard earned money on high council tax charges, the dropping of the 84 bus when it was well used replacing with the 84b which runs every hour and longer at certain times. This borough is getting worse.
Can we have our democracy back please? It feels like we’re at the mercy of a tyrant under who’s watch violent crime is massively on the increase, and many of his policies (like this one) seem to be designed to benefit TfL as a business prospect and not ordinary Londoners. Maybe their long-term goal is to re-privatise it so they’re trying everything they can to boost its value?
And none of this dictator’s policies have worked. For example, a ULEZ scheme designed to tax the poor and restrict our ability to move freely in and around our own town; dropping the 84 bus route even though a lot of people relied on it (particularly for hospital visits to and from Moorfields Eye Unit at Potters Bar Community Hospital, or Barnet General Hospital); sending 384 buses down side streets like Salisbury Road, against the wishes of practically every single resident, even though the road isn’t wide enough and we knew it would cause the damage that led to the debacle that was the rebuild (which was scheduled to have taken 5 days but in fact took 5 weeks); and now these bus lanes down a High Street that already suffers from congestion during certain times of day!
Surely the council can step in an overrule all of the London Mayor’s nonsense? Isn’t that what we elected them for?