Retroid Raving

"Launched at UCT less than a fortnight ago, the African Future Urban Transport CoE for Studies in Public and Non-motorised Transport (ACET) will harness research from three leading African universities to find public and non-motorised transport solutions for the continent's big cities. It will also act as a hub of research and capacity building.

Its work will fall on UCT's Centre of Transport Studies in the Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment, the University of Dar es Salaam's Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering and the University of Nairobi's Institute for Development Studies
....
Will we see safe, reliable alternatives in urban transport that will persuade motorists to give up their car keys?"

Could I respectfully point out that they could start their studies far closer to home - AT home, in fact, here on our very own campus?

At the North End, in fact, where those of us who toil nearest to the pagan temple that is the memorial to our Cecil - should he not be a brand, BTW??  Marketing opportunity for OU^TM going begging if you ask me - daily risk our lives and our vehicles competing with the Jammed Shuttle^TM for space on the road.  Which has on one occasion necessitated my reversing down Ring Road for a good 50 metres to allow a soft drinks delivery truck to negotiate the bend next to the RW James car park, because of buses on both sides of the road.

And where I daily risk my rear bumper (OK, I have a tow hitch, the other guy would get hurt worse) braking to avoid students rushing out heedlessly across Ring Road to catch said shuttle.  And aren't some of those damn buses a whole lot bigger than we were told they would be??

The whole organisation of the JS^TM bus stop at the North End is a complete mess: get one too many bus going up Ring Road, and you have to pull out around a big blue back end around a blind corner; one too many going down, and you have a few millimetres to spare either side of your car as you squeeze past.  I was encouraged, briefly, when the roadworks at the North End started a few weeks ago - but it turned out they were merely resurfacing the much-damaged tar.  And making the speed bumps jolt my suspension far worse than they used to. 

Again, I was gladdened by the site of work below the dam - but in the absence of any information from OU^TM, I am sure that has nothing to do with improving the bus situation.

Given that Retroid does not visit the South End much - and then only to drive through it - he does not know too much of the JS^TM problems one finds there.  But it looks MUCH tidier than the other end!

Now I would have put up a Google Earth image, but even with our significantly increased bandwidth (kudos, ICTS!!), that has proved impossible - so I borrowed part of one from the Campus Maps page link to Google Maps.

Note the ridiculously inadequate width of Ring Road adjacent to the student car park (white arrow).

Now note the student car park.

I almost hesitate to suggest, given that it seems so obvious, that it would be a simple thing to put a traffic circle round about where the arrowhead is - and have the bus stop IN THE CAR PARK.

This would mean that buses for whichever destination leave from the same place, same side of the road - and AWAY from traffic.  Wouldn't that be simple?  It would mean losing a few student parking bays, but hey, they're meant to be using the JS^TM anyway, right?

Or am I just a scientist of little brain, and it is that far wiser folk than I actually have a plan for these environs?