Revealed: the road signs that will ban drivers from Olympic lanes

 
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10 April 2012

Road signs giving priority to 50,000 members of the "Olympic family" were unveiled today.

The signs show how normal motorists and buses will have to give way to official vehicles during the Games to allow the so-called "Zil lanes" to operate. The priority road corridors will operate typically from 7am to 7pm on a third of the 106-mile Olympic network.

Published by Transport for London, the signs show how official traffic will have exclusive use of the right-hand lane of a dual carriageway, in a few cases shared by local buses.

All other vehicles, including cyclists, will have to use the nearside lane. Public parking bays near venues will also be suspended for Olympic-only use.

The signs will be installed next year but will not become active until a few days before the opening ceremony on July 27. Affected roads will also be painted with the Olympic rings.
The signs have been published at the start of a public consultation into the Local Area Traffic Management and Parking plan.

This will set out temporary changes - affecting hundreds of thousands of residents and businesses - to access and parking controls within a mile radius of all sports venues, not just the Olympic Park.

The Olympic boroughs of Newham, Waltham Forest and Greenwich are first with their plans. By the end of the month changes will also be set out for areas surrounding Lord's (archery), Wimbledon (tennis), Broxbourne (rafting), Eton Dorney (Windsor, rowing) and Earl's Court (volleyball).
The new plans also show the "last mile" which indicates spectator flows approaching a sports venues.

Concern about spectator congestion at Greenwich Park, host of the equestrian events, has led to Games chiefs building temporary footbridges over approach roads.

Olympic lanes will be used by athletes, media, officials and corporate sponsors - but cyclists and taxi drivers are banned. It is the use of the roads by sponsors that has proved particularly controversial because they will not be travelling out of operational necessity. Some 25,000 sponsors will be entitled to use the lanes.

The Mayor's call for Olympic bigwigs to use public transport has resulted in few concessions so far. Members of the International Olympic Committee, used to travelling first class, are unlikely to change their habits.

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