We have submitted evidence to the Bill Committee dealing with the Bus Services Bill (no. 2) which is currently making its way through Parliament. This legislation is generally about bus services outside London. However, a small number of campaigners opposed to protected cycling infrastructure have sought to add amendments which would ban bus stop bypasses across England, including in London. We felt it was important to highlight our view to the Committee.
We concur with the evidence submitted by our parent charity, the London Cycling Campaign.
We strongly oppose any clauses or amendments which would ban bus stop bypasses, also known as “floating” bus stops, which are a proven and safe solution to accommodate cycling and bus users on the same streets.
- Most people will not cycle if they are expected to share space with high volumes of motor traffic—particularly buses. The differential in mass and kinetic energy between a person cycling and a bus is many orders of magnitude larger than that between a cyclist and a pedestrian. People do not need training or safety gear to “man up” on the road—they need fully separated, protected cycle tracks, which are the only way most people will feel comfortable cycling to destinations on main roads.
- Bus stop bypasses, or “floating” bus stops, are a pragmatic solution to bus/bike conflicts. They reduce harm by eliminating dangerous crush movements between people cycling and buses pulling into the kerb at bus stops. They are established best practice in other European countries with dense, well-used bus networks, such as the Netherlands.
- Newham was the site of some of the first BSBs in London, on Stratford High Street, installed in 2012/13.Even though they don’t meet modern best-practice standards and the ergonomics could be improved, these bypasses have proven successful at eliminating bus/cycle conflicts.
- We can only find a report of one collision between a pedestrian and cyclist (pp. 14) at a BSB in Newham, at the Warton Road stop on Stratford High Street. This collision was categorised “slight,” i.e. not requiring hospital treatment. The BSBs are some of the safest parts of Stratford High Street for walking and cycling. By comparison, the stretches where the protected cycle track disappears (including unprotected cycle lanes and junctions, and a “traditional” unprotected bus stop in a lay-by) have a very poor safety record for both pedestrians and for cyclists.
- More BSBs have since been built in Newham, in Stratford Town Centre, the Royal Docks, Westfield Avenue, and Romford Road. These examples have better sightlines and ergonomics to make it easier for cyclists and bus users to navigate the space. We are glad that Newham is one of several councils leading the way in safer bus stop design in Britain.
- We acknowledge, and empathise with, Disabled bus users who find interactions with cycling intimidating—especially those with sensory impairments (including blind, low-vision, and d/Deaf people.) We understand why they may feel apprehensive at BSBs. Designers should ameliorate these issues by improving tactile guidance marking, colour contrast, level delineation, avoiding shared footways wherever possible, and removing obstacles and visual clutter to make it easy for cyclists to see (and give way to) bus users crossing to and from the island. This should go hand-in-hand with physical bus priority measures to deliver measurable, meaningful improvements to bus services, and education and behaviour change campaigns to improve compliance.
- On the other hand, “traditional” unprotected bus stop designs—the “status quo” where buses and cycles are expected to dodge each other—present inherent problems for inclusivity. For those who may prefer to cycle slowly, or who experience fear about a collision with motor traffic—including less experienced cyclists, Disabled cyclists using cycles as a mobility aid, children, older people, and families—BSBs are the only way they can cycle on a street also served by a bus route in a relaxed way. We highlight from charity Wheels for Wellbeing’s briefing on BSBs: “Bus stop bypasses are presently an essential part of inclusive active travel networks that enable (pan-impairment) Disabled people to make journeys […] Banning bus stop bypasses would cause ongoing exclusion of Disabled people from active travel and bus use, and additional deaths/injuries in motor vehicle collisions.”
- We note and highlight Dr Harrie Langton-Spencer’s 2024 paper “Disabled people’s access needs in transport decarbonisation” in IPPR Progressive Review, which highlights the need for collective placemaking and understanding the diversity of Disabled voices in resolving seemingly incompatible access frictions. Dr Langton-Spencer specifically highlights bus stop bypasses as an example. She writes: “Instead of striving for an unobtainable ‘fully accessible’, which obscures access frictions […] is a better outcome not one in which […] nobody is excluded and everybody has the best experience possible?”
- A ban on “floating” bus stops would be a gross overreaction to a small risk, and be damaging to those who rely on cycling and buses.
- A ban would make building fully protected cycle tracks impossible.
- This would in turn make targets around sustainable transport, decarbonisation, and road danger reduction impossible.
- A ban would disproportionately exclude inexperienced cyclists, children, older people, and Disabled people using cycles as mobility aids from cycling, pushing them back into expensive car ownership or needing to be driven around by someone else. This changes the character of cycling from a mode of transport to an extreme sport.
- It would lead to an increase in bodged and disproven non-”solutions” such as shared pavements and 2-tier provision, which are less satisfactory—both for people cycling, and for Disabled pedestrians and bus users with sensory impairments.
- A ban would frame interactions with cycling as more risky and dangerous to bus users than interactions with motor vehicles. Casualty data from STATS19 shows this is simply untrue.
- We caution the Bill Committee of cherry-picked evidence used as a “gotcha” to support a claim that all “floating” bus stops are dangerous (for instance, video of a particularly busy stop in a tourist area where people unfamiliar with UK traffic rules regularly walk into the path of all kinds of traffic; or a photo of a legacy paint-on-the-pavement cycle lane that isn’t representative of modern standards.) One could do the same exercise with “traditional” unprotected bus stops, or for other street design features—such as advanced stop lines, or indeed many bus stations. The evidence on the efficacy and safety of BSBs must be taken as a whole, and compared to other options in the highways design toolkit—which have overwhelmingly failed to deliver positive outcomes for bus patronage and for the safety of people cycling.
- We urge the Bill Committee to reject amendments that would ban bus stop bypasses. Other European countries show that BSBs are a key component of comprehensive, well-used, and inclusive bus networks that are fit for the future. England should follow their lead, and focus on measures to make buses better—rather than a logically incoherent ban on BSBs that would only serve to make cycling worse.
We strongly oppose any clauses or amendments which would ban bus stop bypasses, also known as “floating” bus stops, which are a proven and safe solution to accommodate cycling and bus users on the same streets.