Cambridgeshire Guided Busway wil go ahead (at a massive cost)
Jerry
Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is going to cost more money that even I
ever considered it could possible cost, and its got all the funding it
needs (even though other schemes such as MerseyTram were denied it when
their cost increase was less than for CGB).
At least it's (hopefully) going to be a quiality construction, and for
that we can all be grateful.
I would like to say congratulations and well done to everyone in the
guided busway delivery team at Cambridgehire Country Council. I applaud
their efforts. I have always respected their abilities and hard work,
even though I've been opposed to the scheme from the outset and still
think that it is going to be a white elephant.
Jerry A.
suer
--------
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 11:01 AM
Subject: Message from Bob Menzies about the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway
I am pleased to be able to tell you that Cambridgeshire County Council is
to be given £92.5m from central Government to build the Cambridgeshire
Guided Busway.
Following the submission of our Business Case for the busway in April
this
year, we have been engaged in discussions with the Department for
Transport
for some months now. The outcome of these discussions is that the
Department is convinced of the need for the busway and the value of money
it offers and has agreed to contribute £92.5m (as a 100% grant) towards
the
costs.
As you know, the Guided Busway will provide high quality, reliable and
frequent bus services for thousands of people living in the A14 corridor
and is a central part of the Council's approach to managing the growth
agenda.
The Guided Busway will be the world's longest busway and Government has
recognised the significant benefits and value for money the scheme
offers.
Buses will travel on a dedicated, segregated route away from the A14 and
other congested local roads, offering passengers a more reliable, higher
quality and frequent bus service.
As part of the Guided Busway we will build two brand new Park & Ride
sites
at St Ives and Longstanton. These new sites will serve drivers on the
A1096
and B1050 commuting into Cambridge.
The other stops on the route are Hinchingbrooke hospital, Huntingdon town
centre, St Ives town centre, Swavesey, Oakington, Histon & Impington, the
new development at Arbury Park, Cambridge Regional College, Cambridge
Science Park, Cambridge city centre, Cambridge railway station,
Addenbrooke's hospital and Trumpington Park & Ride.
The Guided Busway will also serve Cambridgeshire's proposed new town -
Northstowe as well other proposed developments such as Clay Farm and
Trumpington Meadows. High quality, reliable and frequent bus services
will
encourage new residents to use public transport from day one.
In 2004 we estimated the cost of the busway to be £86.4m. The total cost
of
the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is now £116.2m. This is because of
significant increases in local land values that have occurred in recent
years and also because the rate of inflation in the construction industry
has been far higher than the Retail Price Index rate of inflation. (Our
estimation for the Government in 2004 required us to use the Retail Price
Index rate of inflation.)
I can confirm that there is sufficient money available from Government
grant and developer contribution to cover the cost of the project.
The Council will be asked to approve the final funding package for the
busway and appoint the contractor (Edmund Nuttall Ltd) on 18th July.
When the contract has been awarded we will start to acquire the land we
need for the busway. We will also work with the District Councils to
discharge the planning conditions relating to the busway such as the
landscape design and Park & Ride site design.
Once we have discharged the necessary conditions and acquired the land we
need, Nuttall will start site clearance along the disused railway line in
January 2007 (before the bird nesting season).
The provisional construction programme proposes a base at Longstanton at
the site of the proposed Park and Ride. The section of Guided Busway
from
Longstanton to Cambridge will be constructed first, with the first 1.5km
section of this forming the test section for construction techniques.
It will take us nearly two years to build the busway. This means that
services will start to carry passengers in late 2008.
Our discussions with the four bus operators who want to run services on
the
busway are going well and we expect to have signed agreements for minimum
levels of services within a few weeks.
I sincerely hope that you are as pleased as I am about this news and
should
you have any questions at all about the scheme please do not hesitate to
contact me or my team on 01223 716972 or
guided...@cambridgeshire.gov.uk
Yours sincerely,
Bob Menzies
Head of Delivery - Guided Busway
Jon Connell
> Well, now we know.
>
> Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is going to cost more money that even I
> ever considered it could possible cost, and its got all the funding it
> needs (even though other schemes such as MerseyTram were denied it when
> their cost increase was less than for CGB).
A 34% misprediction on a project over a 2 year period seems like "not
bad" to me. Perhaps I'm just used to software projects...
Jon
frazzled
Alan Quick
"suer" <sc...@cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:scr27-980518....@nntp-serv.cam.ac.uk...
Some more detail in an email forwarded to me by Swavesey parish clerk:
--------
Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 11:01 AM
Subject: Message from Bob Menzies about the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway
I am pleased to be able to tell you that Cambridgeshire County Council is
to be given £92.5m from central Government to build the Cambridgeshire
Guided Busway.
Following the submission of our Business Case for the busway in April
this
year, we have been engaged in discussions with the Department for
Transport
for some months now. The outcome of these discussions is that the
Department is convinced of the need for the busway and the value of money
it offers and has agreed to contribute £92.5m (as a 100% grant) towards
the costs.
Does this mean that there will be no borrowing from the Dft by the County
Council.
The norm I thought was 50% grant 50% borrowing.
Alan Quick
Alan Levy
But don't forget, that's before a single penny has been spent on the
building works. It remains to be seen how much bigger the bill gets in
the *next* 2 years.
--
Alan Levy (alan...@delete-this-first-ntlworld.com)
Delete the spoiler to reply by email!
john....@ntlworld.com
> Jon Connell <j...@no-pork-products-please.figsandfudge.com> wrote:
>
> >Jerry wrote:
> >> Well, now we know.
> >>
> >> Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is going to cost more money that even I
> >> ever considered it could possible cost, and its got all the funding it
> >> needs (even though other schemes such as MerseyTram were denied it when
> >> their cost increase was less than for CGB).
> >
> >A 34% misprediction on a project over a 2 year period seems like "not
> >bad" to me. Perhaps I'm just used to software projects...
> >
> >Jon
>
> But don't forget, that's before a single penny has been spent on the
> building works. It remains to be seen how much bigger the bill gets in
> the *next* 2 years.
There is still the risk that after if starts running, if it doesn't
prove popular, then CCC will have to bail it out from taxpayers money,
which would be very unpopular.
James
john....@ntlworld.com wrote:
> There is still the risk that after if starts running, if it doesn't
> prove popular, then CCC will have to bail it out from taxpayers money,
> which would be very unpopular.
In one sense, the whole scheme is being effectively 'bailed out' by
£92.5m from the start by central government. I must concede it would
be hard for any local politician to turn down this much funding with so
little required from local sources (and most of this will be generously
donated by developers in return for planning permission).
The main question in my mind is how the DfT can justify funding it,
especially at the increased cost. If its benefits to the area are so
great then why shouldn't the County Council fund at least a large
proportion of the cost? (central govt gave Fastway in Crawley only
£19m of the £35m cost). So perhaps it's every UK taxpayer who should
be upset!
There are several distinct ways in which the benefits of the system
will, I suspect, drop significantly below those suggested by the
economic appraisal. Some of these have already been discussed at
length in this newsgroup.
James
Roland Perry
15:38:34 on Sun, 2 Jul 2006, James <thom...@hotmail.com> remarked:
>The main question in my mind is how the DfT can justify funding it
One can only assume they think it's worth it as part of the overall A14
corridor improvements they will also be funding.
>There are several distinct ways in which the benefits of the system
>will, I suspect, drop significantly below those suggested by the
>economic appraisal.
Maybe one benefit will be that no-one else attempts to install a similar
system, if this one proves as useless as everyone predicts.
--
Roland Perry
Jules
> In message <1151879914.6...@j8g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, at
> 15:38:34 on Sun, 2 Jul 2006, James <thom...@hotmail.com> remarked:
>
> >The main question in my mind is how the DfT can justify funding it
>
> One can only assume they think it's worth it as part of the overall A14
> corridor improvements they will also be funding.
That or the gov't are now desperate for some form of flagship
large-scale PT system that actually works after so many failures
(possibly as some form of 'legacy') - resulting in them chucking in the
towel and now being prepared to fund anything again after a string of
disasters. Nothing more than bad timing on our part, possibly.
>>There are several distinct ways in which the benefits of the system
>>will, I suspect, drop significantly below those suggested by the
>>economic appraisal.
>
> Maybe one benefit will be that no-one else attempts to install a similar
> system, if this one proves as useless as everyone predicts.
I'm sure the goalposts that are used to measure success will move. People
generally have a short attention span; ten years down the line they'll
only measure the system against how it was five years ago, not against how
it was predicted to be at start.
That, of course, or measures will come in elsewhere to force people to use
the system whether they like it or not (congestion charging and road tolls
spring immediately to mind as a couple of examples). People will
eventually be forced to use a bad system rather than choose to do so, the
gov't can call it a success, and the fact that better alternatives existed
will just be lost in the noise.
Business as usual, really.
cheers
Jules
R.C. Payne
> On Mon, 03 Jul 2006 07:04:43 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
>
>>In message <1151879914.6...@j8g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, at
>>15:38:34 on Sun, 2 Jul 2006, James <thom...@hotmail.com> remarked:
>>
>> >The main question in my mind is how the DfT can justify funding it
>>
>>One can only assume they think it's worth it as part of the overall A14
>>corridor improvements they will also be funding.
>
> That or the gov't are now desperate for some form of flagship
> large-scale PT system that actually works after so many failures
> (possibly as some form of 'legacy') - resulting in them chucking in the
> towel and now being prepared to fund anything again after a string of
> disasters. Nothing more than bad timing on our part, possibly.
I don't see this as very likely. The only reason the central government
rejected Leeds, Liverpool, South Hants &c. tramways was for exactly the
cost escalation we have seen here with the MGB, which they are happy to
fund. My view on the matter is that people in the DFT think that guided
buses may be able to give the sort of improvements in quality of public
transport that we have seen with light rail/tramways but without their
high cost, but until a big guided bus scheme is built, they won't know
for sure how it works in practise. We are the guinnea pig.
Robin
Roland Perry
11:15:14 on Mon, 3 Jul 2006, Jules
<julesric...@remove.this.yahoo.co.uk> remarked:
>> >The main question in my mind is how the DfT can justify funding it
>>
>> One can only assume they think it's worth it as part of the overall A14
>> corridor improvements they will also be funding.
>
>That or the gov't are now desperate for some form of flagship
>large-scale PT system that actually works after so many failures
Such a system can be found in the Nottingham Tram, and yet despite its
success there are problems getting funding to expand it. As indeed there
are problems getting tram funding all over the country.
>People generally have a short attention span; ten years down the line
>they'll only measure the system against how it was five years ago, not
>against how it was predicted to be at start.
It's our responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen. There's a
substantial online archive just in this newsgroup.
--
Roland Perry
j...@skylon.demon.co.uk
> I don't see this as very likely. The only reason the central government
> rejected Leeds, Liverpool, South Hants &c. tramways was for exactly the
> cost escalation we have seen here with the MGB, which they are happy to
> fund. My view on the matter is that people in the DFT think that guided
> buses may be able to give the sort of improvements in quality of public
> transport that we have seen with light rail/tramways but without their
> high cost, but until a big guided bus scheme is built, they won't know
> for sure how it works in practise. We are the guinnea pig.
Two hundred years after Brunel's birth (www.brunel200.com) the nation
that pioneered railways and exported that technology across the world
decides to adopt a system based on the earlier, more primitive
cartways (www.richkni.co.uk/dartmoor/granite.htm).
In the rest of Europe high speed trains link major cities with local
tramways and light railways. Soon freight will be transported quickly
and energy efficiently across Switzerland through deep base tunnels
under the Alps (www.alptransit.ch/pages/e).
Perhaps all those great British engineers of the past spinning in
their graves could be used as a novel renewable energy source?
Jerry
> Maybe one benefit will be that no-one else attempts to install a similar
> system, if this one proves as useless as everyone predicts.
We will be the guinea pigs as there is no comparable guided busway in
the UK or, in my opinion and in constrast to Cambs CC's claims,
anywhere in the world.
Having spoken to Bob Menzies about the bids from the three companies
I'm glad that they allocated a signficant weight to quality when
deciding which contractor to use. The choice was not as crude as solely
going for the cheapest bidder.
I pleased that they have gone for an expensive design specifically
because if they went for a cheap scheme then next time a busway was
proposed the promoter would blame the cheap construction (as in
Edinburgh) and say that their scheme would be fine because they would
spend more money on it.
Well, Cambs will have used that excuse so it can't be used again.
If CGB fails there will be no other busway like it built again.
Even if it succeeds, the DfT will now know how expensive busways are -
at best just a little cheaper than rail though probably more expensive,
which is what rail campaigners' have always been saying.
It's worth revisiting the cost that Cambs CC's consultants, Atkins
Rail, gave for the raiwlay. If you take out thre cost of the ECML
flyover conneciton, and the stretch from St.Ives to Huntingdon their
inflated 'professional/Network Rail-standard' rail costs for Chesterton
Junction to St.Ives are quite reasonable in the context of £116m for
St.Ives to Milton Road and Cambridge Station to Trumpington busway.
Keep an eye on the Luton-Dunstable Translink busway scheme. The
inspector has reported but no dedcision has been announced yet. In that
scenario Chiltern Railwasy' parent Laing Rail produced a proposal to
roepen it as a railway and apparently it was part of their bid for
Thameslink/Great Northern franchise.
I don't believe the DfT will fund both schemes, especially as the cost
of CGB has gone
up so much. As said earlier in this thread, the government has now
'proven' their public transport credentials. They only needed to do it
once, and building two busways in parallel might seem foolish as they
could not learn the lessons from the first before building the second.
Jerry
Tony Finch
>
>I am pleased to be able to tell you that Cambridgeshire County Council is
>to be given £92.5m from central Government to build the Cambridgeshire
>Guided Busway.
I'm told this is about the same cost as building a TGV line from Cambridge
to St. Ives...
Tony.
--
f.a.n.finch <d...@dotat.at> http://dotat.at/
FAEROES SOUTHEAST ICELAND: SOUTHWEST BACKING SOUTH 4 OR 5, OCCASIONALLY 6
LATER IN SOUTHEAST ICELAND. FAIR THEN RAIN. GOOD BECOMING MODERATE.
Roland Perry
07:32:25 on Mon, 3 Jul 2006, Jerry <jerry.a...@virgin.net> remarked:
>building two busways in parallel might seem foolish as they
>could not learn the lessons from the first before building the second
But promoting them in parallel seemed to work. Both outfits could point
to the existence of the other as "proof" that other people thought a
guided busway was OK. Indeed, you might sometimes have thought that each
was pointing at the other under the assumption it had been approved
already.
--
Roland Perry
Roland Perry
3 Jul 2006, Tony Finch <d...@dotat.at> remarked:
>>I am pleased to be able to tell you that Cambridgeshire County Council is
>>to be given £92.5m from central Government to build the Cambridgeshire
>>Guided Busway.
>
>I'm told this is about the same cost as building a TGV line from Cambridge
>to St. Ives...
If Cambridge was in rural France, perhaps; and the line had one station
every 150Km. (Figures from TGV-Est currently under construction: 10M
Euro/Km, 400Km, 3 stations).
--
Roland Perry
Jerry
Agree 100% Roland. I was involved in the public inquiries for both and
I can confirm what you wrote.
By the way, I criticised both busway promoters for not looking at
cheaper rail-based solutions, such as PPM and BladeRunner. At the time
of the inquiry the PPM was not in permanent operation anywhere, and
BladeRunner hadn't got a full-size vehicle built.
Both these alternatives have moved forward. I attended a rail
conference at the weekend in Stoke-on-Trent at which representatives of
both solutions spoke. The BladeRunner presentation was much more
convincing than its inventor Carl Henderson gave (as my witness) at the
CGB public inquiry. The technical director of Parry, Caspar Lucas, gave
a fantastic presentation about how successaful the PPM has been on the
Stourbridge Town branch, and how suitable it is (perhaps as an intial
service whilst building up custom) on disused branch lines. I also
spoke to PPM supremo, John Parry, and told him the bad news about the
St.Ives line.
Jerry
Jules
>>People generally have a short attention span; ten years down the line
>>they'll only measure the system against how it was five years ago, not
>>against how it was predicted to be at start.
>
> It's our responsibility to make sure that doesn't happen. There's a
> substantial online archive just in this newsgroup.
I wish there was a clause in there which said that if it all goes tits-up
there'll be money available to rip the concrete up, put the rails back,
and re-plant any necessary vegetation, though.
That's what seems to be missing from all these sorts of schemes; that if
it proves to be a total disaster whoever signed it off in the first place
will return things to how they were before, such that someone else can
have a go.
Jerry
> I wish there was a clause in there which said that if it all goes tits-up
> there'll be money available to rip the concrete up, put the rails back,
> and re-plant any necessary vegetation, though.
>
> That's what seems to be missing from all these sorts of schemes; that if
> it proves to be a total disaster whoever signed it off in the first place
> will return things to how they were before, such that someone else can
> have a go.
As part of my objection to the CGB at the public inquiry I asked that
the inspector modify the TWA Order so that the railway 'rights' are not
lost if CGB happens i.e. it could still be converted back to a railway
without a TWA being required.
The inspector did not apply this condition - or any signficant
conditions at all.
Cambs CC have never wanted to discuss any guided busway solution that
involved retention of any railway infrastucture.
I am absolutely convinced that Cambs CC are determed to prevent any
possibility of a railway ever being reinstated. Actually I cannot blame
them. They know only too well that there is massive support for the
railway and no public support for the busway. Therefore if there was
any possibiolity of the railway being reinstated the busway would face
on-going criticism for the whole of its life. Better for them to
silence their critics.
Jerry
ps. I always use Google to access this newsgroup. On IE I cannot see
Jules' post. It tells me that there are 20 posts but only lists 19 of
them. Works OK on Firefox.
Jules
>> That's what seems to be missing from all these sorts of schemes; that if
>> it proves to be a total disaster whoever signed it off in the first place
>> will return things to how they were before, such that someone else can
>> have a go.
>
> As part of my objection to the CGB at the public inquiry I asked that
> the inspector modify the TWA Order so that the railway 'rights' are not
> lost if CGB happens i.e. it could still be converted back to a railway
> without a TWA being required.
>
> The inspector did not apply this condition - or any signficant
> conditions at all.
:-(
But even if they had - I'd rather it be taken further, i.e. if the
busway scheme proved to be a complete flop *and a rail solution was the
alternative* then the developers should be liable for costs involved in
replacing all the track that they'd previously ripped up. Otherwise it's
just added expense for a future rail solution that could have been
avoided. In other words, they should have to put it back as they found it,
not just leave a mass of unusued concrete through the countryside for
others to deal with.
Plus of course it'd make sure that those involved in the busway were
damn certain that their plans were sound, which doesn't seem to be the
case at the moment given the wild figures, loaded questionnaires, and
apparently blinkered views that have been flying around over the scheme.
> I am absolutely convinced that Cambs CC are determed to prevent any
> possibility of a railway ever being reinstated.
That's rather staggering, although I must admit it's the impression I've
always got as someone not connected with any particular scheme. It
comes across as though there was a reason (monetary?) that it had
to be a bus scheme - possible connections between the developers [1]
and operators, or an order from on high in central gov't? I don't know...
[1] Who actually gets the job of laying the guidway? Same developers who
are building all the housing that supposedly needs the bus service?
Anything funny going on in terms of ownership of the guidway, maintenance
contracts, car park operation etc.?
The kind of unwavering, blinkered view that's gone on these last few years
just seems very odd in light of the work that others have put into
alternatives and the huge public opposition to the scheme.
> ps. I always use Google to access this newsgroup. On IE I cannot see
> Jules' post. It tells me that there are 20 posts but only lists 19 of
> them. Works OK on Firefox.
Hmmm that's very odd. I haven't knowingly done anything that could break
IE :-) Just another little inidication of what a useless piece of
software it is, I suppose!
cheers
Jules
kelvin...@hotmail.com
> > ps. I always use Google to access this newsgroup. On IE I cannot see
> > Jules' post. It tells me that there are 20 posts but only lists 19 of
> > them. Works OK on Firefox.
>
> Hmmm that's very odd. I haven't knowingly done anything that could break
> IE :-) Just another little inidication of what a useless piece of
> software it is, I suppose!
>
The times on your posts are all in the future. For example this post
says 12:58 when its only 12:37 now. Perhaps IE doesn't show posts until
the time now is after the time of the post? (I know that wouldn't be
terribly sensible behaviour but we're talking about IE). Anyway you may
want to look at the clock on the machine you're posting from.
KK
Roland Perry
11:58:34 on Thu, 6 Jul 2006, Jules
<julesric...@remove.this.yahoo.co.uk> remarked:
>Who actually gets the job of laying the guidway? Same developers who
>are building all the housing that supposedly needs the bus service?
No, it's being done by not very famous contractors Edmund Nuttall Ltd,
who built the Crawley guided bus, which I have read is regarded as a
failure [1] (although not perhaps because it was built out of spec,
merely the wrong solution to the wrong problem).
[1] Two routes, one with approx 110 buses each way a day, the other with
approx 60; so that's 340. Carrying 7,200 passengers a day, or 20 per
bus. There are doubts to what extent these are new passengers, rather
than transferred from whatever ran those routes before.
--
Roland Perry
bob_builder
It could be due to the fact that Jules' clock appears to be an hour
fast. Maybe IE does not display messages written in the future?
Jules
Weird. System clock's right, but the timezone is wrong - maybe that's
confusing it. Either that or it's because I'm using
news.individual.net to post and they're in Berlin - so presumably are
an hour ahead of us? (I don't know if I'm responsible for generating dates
on posts or if that's something the server should do - although logically
it should be up to me)
Looking at various posts in this thread, the timezone offsets
(against the raw displayed time) and the way dates/time are displayed are
all over the place - some are 7 hours behind, some are an hour ahead, some
explicitly state 'BST' whilst others don't etc.
cheers
Jules
Jerry
> No, it's being done by not very famous contractors Edmund Nuttall Ltd,
> who built the Crawley guided bus, which I have read is regarded as a
> failure [1] (although not perhaps because it was built out of spec,
> merely the wrong solution to the wrong problem).
Yes, they built the Crawley FastWay, dubbed "FarceWay" by the local
media.
Of course, the pre-CCC guided bus proposal, SuperCam was variously
known as SuperScam, SuperCon etc.
Not that the railways escape: Worst, Vermin, Muddle and Get Nowhere,
...
By the way, does anyone remember that the cost of the busway
(admittedly excluding the Trumpington spur) was only £55m when CHUMMS
proposed it back in July 2001.
Jerry
Colin Rosenstiel
jerry.a...@virgin.net (Jerry) wrote:
At least the Government has relented on its anti-rail stance today and
authorised a chunk of Manchester Metrolink extensions.
--
Colin Rosenstiel
Jerry
> At least the Government has relented on its anti-rail stance today and
> authorised a chunk of Manchester Metrolink extensions.
Yes, and there's not even an election due.
Jerry A
Dave {Reply Address In.sig}
be to call an election in the next month and then announce he's standing
down as leader.
--
Dave
mail da v...@llondel.org (without the space)
http://www.llondel.org
So many gadgets, so little time
James
Roland Perry wrote:
> No, it's being done by not very famous contractors Edmund Nuttall Ltd,
> who built the Crawley guided bus, which I have read is regarded as a
> merely the wrong solution to the wrong problem).
I wasn't aware it was regarded as a failure by most. Obviously there
will be the 'car driver' lobby who aren't as enlightened as we are in
Cambridge and are shocked at seeing cars having to wait for buses, but
overall I think it has been successful.
THAT SAID, the Crawley scheme is completely different from the CGB in
my view. A couple of years ago I went on a visit to see Fastway (with
two Cambs County officers in fact) and met the people leading the
project. Their whole approach was very different from Cambridgeshire's.
James
Colin Rosenstiel
thom...@hotmail.com (James) wrote:
> THAT SAID, the Crawley scheme is completely different from the CGB
> in my view. A couple of years ago I went on a visit to see Fastway
> (with two Cambs County officers in fact) and met the people leading the
> project. Their whole approach was very different from
> Cambridgeshire's.
Different in what ways, pray?
--
Colin Rosenstiel
James
> Different in what ways, pray?
Some differences between the two schemes are:
- Fastway is more an urban system, with frequent stops (see
http://www.fastway.info/service_info/service_map.htm) rather than an
express, inter-urban service like CGB, which I guess is meant to be
more like an alternative to a rail service.
- Fastway uses guideways within the congested urban areas, often in
short sections as a self-enforcing bus lane. For CGB, the guideway is
mainly used for the long stretches outside the city - pretty much the
converse.
- Those managing the Fastway project appeared to take a "partnership
approach", and sought public support from the start, rather than having
to push it through against a lot of opposition
- They worked with a bus operator from an early stage, which has
several advantages over promoting competition between operators