Green Light for Seaside Bus Lanes

There will be new Eastbourne bus lanes in 2025/26. They will mark a major step in improving public transport and reducing congestion in the town. They will also deliver significant benefits to bus reliability and journey times. The bus lanes, which will run along Seaside and St Anthony’s, are part of a wider effort to promote sustainable transport solutions. Plus they should reduce the number of car trips in the town. Priority for buses is an important step in reducing traffic on our congested roads.

East Sussex County Council’s officers (ESCC) have recommended these bus lanes should proceed. With the final decision being made at the ESCC Transport and Environment Committee on November 18th.

Background

The Government gave £41m to ESCC, for their Bus Service Improvement Programme (BSIP). ESCC state this funding is to “… to ensure that East Sussex residents and visitors enjoy the highest possible quality bus services that provide a frequent and comprehensive choice, reduce congestion and make a positive contribution to better air quality and decarbonisation.”

Without new bus priority infrastructure, such as these bus lanes, it is unlikely to succeed.

Initial Consultation

The Initial BSIP bus priority public consultation ran for 8 weeks in 2023. However the Seaside scheme had 70% opposing it. The responses highlighted concerns about the loss of on-street parking provision. As well as the negative impact on general traffic flow due to reallocating road space for bus lanes. The designers were then told to reconsider the design.

Unfortunately one of the effects of the bus lanes being rejected, as Stagecoach predicted, was the Government did not allocate any funds to the county for Zero Emission buses (ZEBRA) . Whilst Surrey, West Sussex , Kent and Brighton were funded for hydrogen and electric buses.

Second Consultation

There was then a modified scheme. This had the proposed cycle infrastructure removed. Plus a considerable number of parking places reinstated. This was to address the concerns of residents and local businesses along Seaside. This design was consulted on and this is the scheme that has been accepted. See details here

This second consultation had 2,788 completed surveys. 56% supported the new scheme and 37% opposed it. It is fair to say, this has split the town, with some opposition from some local business owners. As is often the case, businesses may over estimate the number of their customers, who drive to their premises. Only time will tell what affect the bus lanes will have!

Time Savings

ESCC predict improvements, for bus times, will vary by the time of day but should be Eastbound up to 3.6 minutes and Westbound 3.4 minutes. So on a return trip around 7 minutes. Plus there is the benefit of a more reliable timetable.

Following concerns from residents there was also further modelling undertaken. This was to include the local streets, that had junctions on Seaside. The conclusion was that “nil detriment to general traffic journey times in both the AM and PM peak periods, whilst delivering significant benefits to bus reliability and journey times.”

Transport and Environment Committee meeting

If you want to know more , here is Report pack for the Committee meeting .

Conclusion

Bus lanes along Seaside should be good for passengers. They will also play a vital role in improving overall mobility in Eastbourne , give people greater transport choices, make the area more liveable as well as improve the environment.

Paul Humphreys – EEAN Transport Group

Making Transport Carbon Neutral

The challenge to make transport Carbon Neutral in Eastbourne.

Most campaigners want Eastbourne Borough Council (EBC) to succeed in its 2030 Carbon Neutral target for the town. This is a hard task, as much of the CO2e transport footprint, is down to individuals, where EBC has limited influence. So the questions are:- firstly can transport become carbon neutral and secondly if so by what date.

Currently both Transport for South East (TfSE) and East Sussex County Council (ESCC) are planning for the future of transport . So this is a good time to examine what might happen

Below is what EBC think would be the required reduction in internal combustion cars. In reality current levels in the UK are a long way from this.

Also identified is their High Ambition scenario – (Eastbourne Carbon Neutral 2030 Appendix 1) which still has over 70k tonnes CO2e for transport.

The problem for the town is the dominance of private cars and so far nothing has been done to reduce it. Projections by EBC show, at best, a slight decline from 80% in 2017 to 75% in 2030.

However carbon should be considered alongside other improvements such as health, reduced congestion and social inclusion. For example moving to private Electric Vehicles does little to reduce congestion or social inclusion.

Meanwhile as background bus numbers have collapsed

Much the same problem for cycling , where the share of trips is 2%, and has declined over the years.

So 2 hopes for reducing carbon are
1) Increase the number of electric vehicles. Some projections are 40% of vehicles by 2030. They either have a zero footprint or around 40% of an internal combustion engine, if all their manufacture and disposal is included. So the possible improvement on carbon is 40% to 60% but no change in congestion
2) A reduction in the share of car trips. In Council and Borough Council documents there is frequent mention of 10% fewer car journeys. Initially in the Hailsham, Polegate Eastbourne Corridor but then often quoted in residential planning applications. This would require around 150% more cycle trips, 125% more bus journeys and 33% more journeys on foot. This against a background of more traffic in the area, due to more housing, especially in South Wealden.

So what are the projections for the future? From an active travel perspective the TfSE’s ‘Our Route for Growth’ is very disappointing. Note the cycle icon also covers walking

It is hoped that the East Sussex Local Transport Plan will be more positive. To make a real change planning needs to be more daring . Here including both Push and Pull measures.

These are some further measures that could be undertaken, based on Ashden’s 31 Actions for Councils

* Ban or discourage private cars from the city centre
* Establish urban consolidation centres
* Encourage car sharing
* Enable the rapid shift to electric vehicles through EV charging
* Replace existing buses with electric buses
* Deliver a rapid transition of the council’s own fleet to electric
* Require all taxis to be electric through licensing
* Reduce the need to own and use a car through the local plan

So in conclusion, there is much that could be done, to reduce the carbon footprint of the town. But … to be really effective it would have to be transformational. The alternative is worsening congestion and a slow improvement in CO2e based mainly by adopting electric vehicles. From the campaigners’ viewpoint this is simply not enough and too slow