Agreed, as soon as the announcement was made there were many people with doubts (I can't be bothered going back checking what the Daily Mail had to say but will take his word that they said "get it up you, France".

There were even more doubts when the wide ranging restrictions that have had to be introduced including extra powers to the police, very intrusive restrictions on any businesses unfortunate enough to be near any of the venues.

If we're going back to commitments in the bid, we also committed to spending £2.4bn. We did not commit to spending four times this amount.

Someone told me about one of the companies building venues. They completed their contract on time and on budget but are not allowed to use that in any advertising because they are not a sponsor.

Some good news for them then but not until after the event.

Close-

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... hirac.html

Well anyone who does contract work will know that some clients will allow project publicity afterwards, and some will not. You need to ask every time. Even commercial organisations may have a "no press publicity" approach. It applies particularly to sensitive high-profile locations (not the job, but the location). For example, you will never see publicity about works done on Royal Palaces.

Can it really be that the Olympic Lanes might be suspended ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18834701

I can certainly see some places, such as the Limehouse Link westbound in the morning rush hour, with huge delays squeezing in to one lane, and not a single Olympic vehicle moving at that time.

Fascinating pictures on Sky News this morning from the helicopter of people diving out of an Olympic lane "on the A4 in West London", generally folks driving into it for about ten yards then coming to a complete stop and indicating left. Others behind would do the same. Then someone in the regular lane, snarled up with people forcing the way into it, would dive into the Olympic lane and hare off into the distance.

Eventually the cameraman found a tiny VMS and focused on it: "Olympic Lane Open To All Traffic" it said, albeit three lanes away from the lane in question and only for a third of the time - the rest it was showing a TFL/LOCOG web address then a twitter address. Madness.

Just an update, because today, Mon July 16, a number of the restrictions came into force, although few of the actual games lanes are active yet.

First thing to notice was the number of police on point duty along the key routes, often in pairs. Just like it used to be a generation ago when police betwen jobs didn't sit in their cars but stood at key places.

The paint job for marking the lanes has already been affected by the recent monsoon weather, and quite a number of the markings, particularly the five rings, are starting to look decidedly faint and washed-out already. They were of course only intended for a limited life and to be easily removable, but it does look as if someone has watered the marking paint a bit too much. I wonder how much is in the budget for variations to maintain and reapply the temporary markings.

The whole of the UK mobile VMS fleet appears to have arrived at frequent intervals along the various Zil routes; at present they just display "Games Lane open to all traffic". I presume they will switch over, but wonder how enforceable such non-standard signage of a restriction actually is. A number of the ones working last week appear to have succumbed to the wet weather and are now dark. Actually they only display this message half the time, alternating with a "Details on Twitter" message. Quite apart from encouraging drivers to access Twitter to get restriction details as they are driving along, because the boards are only in focus for a few seconds as you pass, if it is doing the Twitter rubbish you miss the basic message.

Reports were coming in to the radio from a number of places of signals at key inbound points short-cycling, for example the A2 at Kidbrooke (first signals coming into London) was said to be giving green for 11 seconds, which had caused a backup of several miles. A406 southbound at Beckton (first signals from M11) reported to be the same. TfL said they weren't short-cycling, but it was a deliberate adjustment, made this weekend, and it had been "well-publicised". Nonsense, of course. There was a generic 'signal timings may be changed', but absolutely nothing about deliberately short-cycling key signals down to 11 seconds on main routes, or which ones would be affected.

Through St James Park all the speed tables at the (non controlled) pedestrian crossing points have been removed. Can't have the poor athletes bumping over these like the rest of the peasantry, can we ?

Plenty of TV crews on bridges over the M4 filming the Zil Lane. Now I didn't realise that this lane was to be permitted for black cabs as well, not sure how different that is to other lanes.

just one question as the M4 has a wight limit why can olympic buses use it???

Because... rainbows!

The M4 weight restriction notices have been adapted to say No vehicles over 7.5t EXCEPT Olympics vehicles. I can only presume that as the whole Olympics is full of hot air, they somehow weigh less than otherwise.

Noticed this evening coming in M4-A4 that the traffic was very light at all stages, it really has eased up. An Olympic shuttle coach kept pace all the way from Heathrow to Kensington. Although only the M4 lane J3-J2 is in use, and despite the VMS elsewhere saying the offside lanes were available to all, it solemnly pushed across in front of everyone else to the offside lane so marked at each start point, and then back to the middle at their end, in a very determined manner.

Journalists still taking photographs of the M4 Zil lane from the overbridges.

Huge number of both coaches and double deckers running empty back west again by evening. The various contractors have had to remove any obvious badging, but their basic livery remains, so it's quite apparent for example which are the Stagecoach ones. One of these was indicating on the front electronic sign "Stagecoach welcomes you to Hull", which must have been a puzzlement to the Korean team or whoever, who maybe thought this was some ancient British greeting

Several newspapers are showing the Zil lane in Southampton Row.

The impossible central L####n road that leaves drivers ‘in limbo’ between lanes

The road to nowhere: The most ridiculous example yet of how Ol####cs lanes are making a farce of driving in L####n

(I have blanked out some letters because I don't want Seb Coe kicking my door down - are we allowed to mention his name or is that also protected by the Ol####c Gestapo.

The good news is that it isn't the full fleet as there are still a couple around here. ( E. Lancs )

Is still find it funny that a coach full of people can still use the M4 in and out of town with a 7.5t weight limit and the rest of use can not. They can't be that worried out the bridge

Yes, there is something strange about this. Is it really safe for all weights but the 7.5 has been 'imposed' to keep other large vehicles off, to ease congestion?

Are they still working on it from underneath, or is it all completed at least until September?

Weight limits applying to goods vehicles only (ie permitting PCVs) are not unusual, a weight limit with exemptions for a minority of vehicles still significantly reduces the overall loading on a structure. It's not the case that one heavy vehicle is going to cause a structure to fail, but rather a continued loading with heavy vehicles will have a combined effect of reducing the its life.

No weight limit would need to allow for 44 tonnes LGVs nose to tail in all available lanes, instead only a specific minority of coaches (typically around 15 tonnes) are permitted. That is clearly going to have a difference on the total weight on the structure at any one time.

Here is an example of a weight limit applying to everything except service buses and emergency vehicles, and that was on a bridge that actually was about to collapse - the limit was a temporary measure until it was replaced.

I think they are more worried about what Boris might say !

I thought it was common to see weight limits on bridges etc with "except buses"?

I seem to remember that the Old Severn Bridge had a long-running restriction in the 1970s that HGVs/coaches could not use the outside lane. It was the old Box Girder problem. The stress calculations showed there was only an issue if all four lanes were full of nose-to-tail HGVs. This had been only anticipated if there should be an issue at both exit ends of the bridge simultaneously, causing traffic to back up in both directions across the structure, at 6.00 am on a weekday when the percentage of HGVs was typically at its highest.

The fact is that the M4 elevated section carries very few HGVs, you can often drive the length of it and see it packed with cars and coaches but not one HGV.