Into Town buses are making their mark ... literally!

They say a picture's worth a thousand words, and the one on the right certainly has a story to tell.
It was taken on a recent rainy day, because when it rains, what it shows is more obvious.
The buses that no-one wanted to run through Strait Bargate are slowly but surely making their presence felt and creating their own tram tracks in the bricks which pave the shopping precinct.
Given the amount of damage done since the service started in July 2008, we think it can't be long before major and expensive repairs are needed to the paved surface, which was, of course, not originally designed for buses weighing more than 15 tons to grind through dozens of times a day. That's before two of three passengers get on board -which in one of the fattest towns in Britain means another big increase.
Even if you take a walk along Strait Bargate in dry weather and just look at the paving, the damage is obvious - and it's getting worse.
It clearly wasn't taken into account when the brilliant idea to run buses through the pedestrian precinct was drawn up on the back of a fag packet.
But the questions now are:
Who pays for the damage?
What sort of paving will eventually have to replace the current patio-style slabs?
Will it look as attractive? Probably not if it's got to carry such a heavy load.
Add another cock up to the Boston Borough Council hall of incompetent fame.
Incidentally, we took this photo in the wet to underline our point. But another thing we noticed was how many deep pools - not puddles - of water form around the town, often due to partially blocked drains - the Botolph Street car park entrance off Main Ridge West was a classic example last week and took several days to drain away.
At the moment, we'd say that Boston has less to fear from tidal flooding and more to fear from a few days of heavy rain.

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