Motorcycles in your bus lane

Ooh. That's my normal commute - Admiralty Arch into Trafalgar Square - and my personal bug bear for motorcycles/mopeds in the ASL, the feeder lane and the cycle only lane under the Arch. I often cannot get into that ASL due to the number of motorcycles and mopeds that block it up.

Out of curiosity, why are you ofter better off/safer in the ASL at that intersection?

That cycle lane under the arch is a joke - the arch is too small for 2 lines of cabs and a bike lane. It's also hard to see from a car because you invariably approach it in a queue, not from a clear run. In my opinion the middle gates should be open and made into the bicycle lane.

Because of the pinch point at the junction there is never a clear run to the head of the queue, so you have to filter down the middle to the front. I need to turn right at the roundabout to go down Northumberland Ave but I can't filter on the right hand side thanks to a stupidly large island in that area. There are usually black cabs in both lanes, which will invariably turn left across you as they mostly head up The Strand for Charing Cross and the theatres.

Combined with the very short green phase (and the red light jumpers at the lights on the roundabout making it even shorter) the only safe approach for a motorcycle is to really gun it across to the right hand lane of the roundabout before the cabs can set off.

If there were bicycles blocking this course of action you can't do that, and will get cut up by a left turning car in the right hand lane, so instead, If I can (without getting in a cyclist's way) I will go into the ASL zone and go to the far right instead. I also do this if there is a cyclist filtering up the middle behind me, to let him through into the ASL zone (otherwise I'd be blocking up middle path - most cyclists filter up the left though), and if there are motorbikes behind me I'll do it too, because they're in the same boat.

That junction should be redesigned and the central island should be shrunk and the junction moved back so that filtering is safer and easier. In fact I'd rather not go through the Arch at all but Piccadilly's way worse.