Olympic Games Lanes Make a Return For Paralympics

After a small break from hectic roads from the Olympics, the games lanes are being turned back on again for the start of the London 2012 Paralympic games. Traffic disrupted many journeys last time, but will we see the same sort of disruption this time round?

The Paralympic Route is smaller than the regular Olympic Route, which should make things a little easier for London’s motorists. There are about 8.7 miles of Olympic Games lanes along the Paralympic route. These lanes will be operated flexibly, when there is low demand for the lanes from the Olympic officials and high demand from the general public they will be opened up to everyone until they are needed again.

Although the Paralympic games are on a slightly smaller scale, disruption is still to be expected. During the games people are being advised to avoid the Paralympic Route Network as much as they possible can. Traffic will be particularly bad around the Olympic park, so this area should be avoided whenever possible.

It is also advised that some restrictions in central London roads will be in place today as the Olympic torch relay travels through London. There is expected to be a large amount of spectators watching the torch relay, so many areas in London will be unusually busy.

The A2, A12 and A13 routes into London are also expected to be unusually busy, particularly in the morning. If you are not able to avoid driving along these routes, allow plenty of time for your journey.

The Paralympic opening ceremony will be taking place tonight at the Olympic Park, so all of central London will be much busier than usual.

Overall the chaos caused should be much less than when the regular Olympic Games took place, planning your journey ahead will save time and unnecessary stress.

We hope that everyone enjoys the London 2012 Paralympic Games!

Want to See a Double-Decker Do Push-Ups?

As we all know Friday is the starting day for the London 2012 Olympic Games, with such a huge event taking place in our country we come to think of Britain and symbols of our great country; but when you think of British symbols I bet a 1957 double-decker bus doing push ups didn’t spring to mind did it?

The artist David Cerny created the push up bus to promote the Olympic Games, although I don’t think we needed any help with that. He took our iconic symbol of London and created an athlete out of it, which is quite impressive when you are working with a huge red double-decker bus!

The bus has officially been named the ‘London Boosted’ and along side performing push ups; it features a voice and video projections. The bus has been fitted with a recorded voice groaning as it performs each push up and videos projecting from the windows.

Two huge arms controlled by an electric engine were fitted onto the big red bus to make it move and perform push ups, then the voice was added and there you have it, our next Olympic athlete is born. The London Boosted can be seen outside of the Olympic House in Islington, we can imagine it is quite a sight, so get along there and have a look!

David Cerny is used to creating more controversial art than this, his previous works have caused a lot of anger across Europe, lets hope that this piece is well received. David wants to see how long the ‘athlete’ can keep exercising for; he hopes that the London Boosted can make it the whole three weeks.

Want to see the London Boosted work out right now? Take a look at this video showing off the athlete and David Cerny taking about his latest work.

London 2012 - Olympics To Cause Road Nightmare

Slowly but surely, spectators are descending into London to marvel at the ever-pressing Olympic games. A buzz of excitement has slowly been hitting the streets as more and more fans from all over the world turn our capital into even more of a cosmopolitan paradise. One concern, however, which has been echoing throughout, is congestion on the roads.

Gridlocked London

There is no point in sugar-coating it – London is not the easiest place to be a vehicle owner. Simply walk around the capital and you’re bound to spot a few drivers behind the wheel desperately crooning their heads to find an empty parking space. With more and more people filtering into the city – are we ready for the sudden increased population, or will our roads be in a state of permanent semi-gridlock?

In 2005, during the bidding process, the Olympic Committee visited London to scope out these issues and see whether this concrete jungle could cope.

“There we no delays, quite simply” said bid committee boss Sir Keith Mills.

The fleet of vehicles filled with delegates was followed with a Bond-esque approach, GPS and CCTV tracked them for every movement to ensure no delays were present.

“Whenever they approached red traffic lights, we turned them green” Sir Mills added.

Sir Keith Mills Talks

Nothing is being left to chance with the coming games; the organisers are pushing for efficiency. Over 50 roads are planned to be wholly or partly closed-off during the events, traffic lights are to be effectively ‘turned off’ and a fair few of Big Towns side roads are to be conserved for athletes, VIPs and IOC members so they can get from their rather dapper Mayfair hotels to the stadium in, apparently, under 20-minutes.

Further to this, we will see nearly 60 crossings for the pedestrian to be made ‘out-of-action’ and just over 40 bus stops, closed. A planned action, dubbed ‘Traffic Light Phasing’ will be put into place and around 30-miles of special lanes (now to be called ‘The Olympic Route Network’) will be reserved for those of apparent importance, operating from 7.00am to 7.00pm.

The big question being whispered around the country is, and rightly so, is all this planning, effort and money-loss worth it? The cost to the capitals economy is estimated to be, well, enormous. The answer to this questions remains to be seen, road congestion itself is estimated by some to cost the UK an impressive £8 billion a year,

Figures can be misleading of course, a good example being the Governments current suggestion that our motorways may see an increase to 80mph to bring them on par with the a majority of other nations. The organisation ‘No to 80’ is already predicting, if this increase should go ahead, will cost over £1 billion a year, £62.4 million in road casualty costs, £180.4 million in carbon costs and £766.6 million to be from the petrol-pumps. Ignoring the carbon costs for a second, if the people at No to 80 are correct, the only strange statistic is why the Government hasn’t implemented this already – because £766.6 million at the pumps comes in at a champagne-glass-clinking £460million for the treasuries coffers in duties and VAT – what Chancellor is going to say no to that?

Fat Cats?

Debates will undoubtedly come into action with the Olympic Games. Greater London Authority member John Biggs has gone on-record, stating ‘giving priority to Olympic traffic by changing traffic light timing will clearly cause a massive problems.’ Maybe the vision, and soon-to-be reality, of fat cat Olympic sponsors and promoters lauding over their exclusive lanes whilst ‘ordinary’ locals suffer journeys that will be ‘three or four times longer than normal’ will be the smoking gun in reforming the way London drives.   

Have your say on the debate in the comments section below.
This article was written by the team at www.alternativeroutefinance.co.uk

London 2012 Mini Orchestra

Mini has caught the ever growing London Olympic fever and to celebrate they have performed on orchestra using Mini cars. Mini teamed up with the London Philharmonic orchestra in order to create the musical piece. The horn sounds from nine of the special edition London 2012 Mini’s have been used to create our national anthem, God Save The Queen. This is all to support team Brittan in the London 2012 Olympic Games, lets hope that it works!

Although it may seem like an odd way to show their support to team Brittan, the Mini has been a symbol of Brittan for many years; they are just bursting with British charm. So using the Mini to celebrate Brittan seems appropriate, fun and quirky. It’s also a very good advertisement tactic for the special edition Mini’s. Mini are only going to sell 2012 of the special edition 2012 Mini’s so if they are not already gone, you better get yours quick!

The special edition Mini’s are available in the Union Jack colours, Chilli Red, White Silver and Lightning Blue. They all feature a red white and blue strip which runs over the front to the rear of the vehicle and have the London 2012 logo on the roof, front seats and on the bodywork of the car. The inside of the vehicle also features red, white and blue stitching.

We have to wonder what the queen will think of the orchestra, will she feel inspired of just think it is a load of noise? Well the video of the orchestral national anthem can be seen in bellow, so would you all stand please for our national anthem…