Edinburgh's bus lane hours could be increased
Council plans trial of 7-7-7 bus lane operation on No44 route from Juniper Green to Musselburgh with a view to rolling it out across city.
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00:00The hours when Edinburgh's bus lanes operate could soon be increasing.
00:05A trial is due to start early next year on the route of the number 44 bus between Gillespie Crossroads in Juniper Green and Musselburgh.
00:14It means that instead of operating at peak hours only, Monday to Friday, cars and other traffic would be banned from the lanes for 12 hours a day, every day.
00:24At the moment, most of the city's bus lanes are in force from 7.30am to 9.30am and 4.00pm to 6.30pm and don't operate at weekends.
00:34The new extended operating times are often referred to as 7.00, 7.00, 7.00.
00:39That's 7am to 7pm, seven days a week.
00:44The aim is to give buses greater priority and make bus journeys faster and more reliable,
00:49and so make travel by bus more attractive and encourage people to make the switch from car to bus for many of their regular journeys.
00:59A plan to move all bus lanes in the city to 7.00, 7.00, 7.00 operation produced a mixed response and lots of questions when it was put out to consultation,
01:09so it's being trialled on the 44 route to see how well it works.
01:13The council says there will be extensive monitoring to check whether the change does result in reduced journey times.
01:20The trial will be for 18 months and if it proves successful, the longer operating hours will be rolled out to bus lanes across the city.