Re-opening the southern section of the southern section of guided bus will see journey times between the biomedical campus and Cambridge rail station reduce to less than 5 minutes, says Stagecoach. The busway and its maintenance track are expected to fully re-open on Saturday 30th March.
Currently the journey between the biomedical campus and the station, travelling along Hills Road, can take over 30 minutes at peak times because of congested traffic.
As the busway runs on its own unique track, buses are not caught in traffic, so journey times will be both reduced and more reliable, says Darren Roe, managing director of Stagecoach East.
“We are pleased for our customers that this important piece of the local transport network will soon be reopened,” he said.
“It will help to cut journey times and reduce the congestion that is such a blight on our city centre.
“However, of course safety must be our highest priority so we will continue to work with the relevant authorities to ensure that we abide by the highest standards of safety.
“For example, our ISA is a world-leading safety system that automatically reduces a bus’s speed in line with speed limits. This is already in operation on our busway buses.
Mr Roe said: “While the new fence is being built, our buses will be on diversion, so customers will need to leave more time for their journeys. We will keep customers up to date with the changes through our website, Twitter, and signs at key bus stops.”
The inbound track on the busway between the biomedical campus and Cambridge station has been closed since February 2022 to allow a temporary fence to be installed.
Mr Roe said that since then, bus operators, the county council and emergency services have worked together to risk assess and design a fence.
He said it has been specifically designed with removable sections to allow for safe evacuation.
TRAVEL INFO
From today (Monday) the maintenance track is closed from the entrance of the busway at Hills Road bridge to Addenbrooke’s spur junction for a week, but buses will still run.
From Monday 19 February until Friday 29 March, both the maintenance track and the busway will be closed to allow the new fence to be installed along the 1.2km stretch of The Busway.
