Fleet St Latest

As you can see there is a lot of work going on here in Fleet St. The pipes on the left carry various cables and will have a metal plate put over them and then a layer of concrete and finally the curb stones will be laid on top of that.

I am not the only one concerned about the position of the 12/12A bus stop with it's limited view up the road but that's what the plans said so that's what we have got. The only reason I can see for putting the stop so far back is to give people queuing for the bus plenty of room and will keep them away from the shop windows, That is if they queue where the digger is parked outside Sports Direct.

The consensus of opinion is that March the 19th is possible but don't be suprised if the buses don't get to use Fleet St for a day or 3 after that date.

This planter, with it's ugly tree has to be removed yet. The tree then has to be planted elsewhere. Tree roots can go down a long way so the tree's safe removal could be tricky.

How Safe is Fleet Walk?

Very safe.

A couple of incidents today, what you would call close encounters of the very near miss kind got me thinking about other close calls I have had over the years. It was the fact that in the space of a few hours I had to brake hard to avoid first a cyclist and later a teenager on a skateboard that got me thinking about other near misses. And I realised how few such incidents I had had in the the last ten years and about 10 000 trips through this pedestrianised street. I could now count them on the fingers of one hand and still have a couple of fingers left over and that wasn't even bothering with the thumb.

The first of two today had happened as I was going up Fleet St, I approached a small section set aside for the parking of bikes. A young man had just got on his bike and he , without bothering to look round, set of. I braked firmly and a collision was avoided. By chance there was an other number 12 waiting outside the former post office for me to pass. The driver was one of those brave hardy souls who cycles to work and he held his thumb and forefinger about half an inch apart to indicate how close I and the cyclist had been, As I went past him I expressed the hope that he didn't ride his bike in a similar fashion, "Sometimes" was his answer. Right. Cyclists.

Later the skateboarder came hurtling down the slope at the Strand end just as I entered, again a sharp application of the brake reduced the speed of the bus down from 5 mph to zero in the space of a couple of feet and the youth on the board and the bus missed by inches. Which was lucky for him because running into even a stationary bus at 20 mph on a skateboard tends to ruin your evening.

Which is why we ALWAYS drive slowly in Fleet Street.

Two close encounters in one day and they say things happen in threes. Well not today. I was on my way to Newton and then back to the depot to finish. No more trips along Fleet St for me today. Probably just as well.

Fleet Walk

This is a bus coming up Fleet Street here in Torquay. Fleet Street is a pedestrianised street but as there is no other practical way down to the Harbour from the top of town and back again we are allowed to drive along provided we keep to a speed limit of 10 mph. Now you can see the bus is in the centre of the roadway, well away from the pedestrians on the right of the photo. You should also be able to see on the left, highlighted in yellow some posts. These arrived about a month ago and at first I believed they were there to protect people walked past the bus stops over on the left by the phone boxes. We have never given anyone the idea that people walking here need protection from the buses. If we are moving into that area on the left it is to stop at a bus stop so we will be going even slower than the 10 mph limit anyway. I have since heard that the posts were put in to protect the drain covers which run along the side of the roadway there. Whatever reason the placing of these post here has not made the Street any safer because now when we stop at the bus stop we are 6 feet out into the centre of the road.
As you can see on the above photo the bus facing away from the camera is stopped at the bus stop and the two buses coming up Fleet Street have to move closer to the pedestrians on the right instead of driving along the centre of the road as we used to, and show in top photo. These posts also make it difficult for buses to get down the Street and are causing congestion especially before 10 am when we share the street with delivery trucks.

Please Torbay Council, remove these posts ASAP.

Just in case you think it might be dangerous having buses in a pedestrianised street look at the 3rd photo. The couple are walking along oblivious to the bus behind them but the bus driver isn't oblivious to them. What he is doing is following them, watching them and everyone else carefully. We don't blow the horn in this situation either despite what a local shopkeeper says. We just wait patiently till they move out of the way and then continue on our way.