READING Borough Council is set to put new bus lanes into effect on one of the town’s busiest roads this week.
Following the introduction of bus lanes on Oxford Road, the council is expected to put one of them into effect by the end of the week.
While resurfacing works are currently underway on a near 400-metre stretch outbound between Zinzan Street and George Street, the bus lane there is set to open as soon as works conclude.
The works are scheduled to take place from Thursday-Saturday, October 3-5, though this is weather dependent.
The works will involve off-peak closures during the daytime, including signed diversions for traffic.
The council says that the bus lane between Zinzan Street and George Street has been selected as it is a stretch of road where bus services suffer from the most delays due to congestion, particularly at peak times.
It argues that providing realistic and sustainable transport alternatives will discourage continued growth of car usage.
Higher reliance on cars contribute to congestion and air pollution, which in turn contributes to bad air quality and worsening health conditions for residents.
It follows the London Road bus lane which went live in August as part of the council’s wider Bus Service Improvement Plan.
A second new bus lane along the outbound stretch of the Oxford Road is also to be put in place between Pangbourne Street and Norcot Junction.
Resurfacing is expected to take place later this month, with the new bus lane going live immediately afterwards.
John Ennis, Reading Council’s Lead Councillor for Transport, said: “Reading is a major centre for employment and leisure, attracting many thousands of daily journeys from both inside and outside the borough.
“While we welcome that economic success, there is no doubt it brings major challenges in terms of congestion, air quality and the damaging knock-on health impacts on residents, particularly those who live alongside or near to major routes.”
“A key thread for the Council is to create faster and more reliable alternatives to the private car and this latest new bus lane along the Oxford Road contributes to that by creating extra capacity, which allows buses to avoid getting caught up in jams on what is a busy stretch of road.
“In this instance, it has been possible to create that extra capacity through the redesign of the highway and with no loss of capacity for general traffic.
“Reading already has a popular and well-used bus network and it will become even more attractive to people if buses can avoid congestion and run even more reliably, faster and more frequently.
“This also contributes to Reading’s net zero by 2030 target, in line with the Council declaring a Climate Emergency five years ago.”
