Cambridgeshire Guided Busway - Overview

Overview

The scheme links the city of Cambridge, in East Anglia, with St Ives, Huntingdon and Northstowe (a proposed new town) to the north-west, and with the M11 motorway to the south. The route includes two sections of guided operation, a bus-only road and other places with on-street operation in conventional bus lanes. New park and ride sites have been built at Longstanton and at St Ives, with a tarmac cycle track/bridleway provided alongside some sections of the route. The final scheme includes bus priority and real-time passenger information system displays at busway bus stops; and subsequent separate funding and works to better link those stops to local businesses for pedestrians and cyclists.

It is estimated that 11,500 journeys a day will be made on the busway. The scheme is predicted to cause a direct reduction in traffic on the busy parallel A14 road of 5.6% (rising to 11.1% with the new Park & Ride sites), although as other traffic re-routes to the freed-up road space from other parts of the local road network, the actual net reduction on the A14 is predicted to be 2.3%. The overall scheme is "not intended to solve the congestion problems on the A14" by itself, but will rather have an overall effect across the local road network, and be complementary to the planned road improvements on the A14.