As Red Rover points out, Wilts & Dorset’s web page still makes no mention of the withdrawal after last operation on 27 October of the 18 (Corfe Mullen/Broadstone-Canford Heath-Parkstone –Bournemouth).
Intending passengers from Corfe Mullen may find this wholly unsatisfactory. If they’ve been away on another planet, they will have missed the fact that the village will be completely without its bus to Bournemouth. Those in Broadstone and Canford Heath have the alternative hourly ‘community’ replacement 18, by Transdev Yellow Buses. Fair play to TYB, which has made mention of this fact for almost exactly one month.
It’s pleasing to note that the Traveline SW site has also shown the new TYB service, though in parallel with W&D’s, for a short period. And it is one of these to which the traveller must turn to find new times.
Checking the Traveline site for a journey after 1000 on Monday 29 October 2007, from Broadstone Broadway to Bournemouth centre confirms TYB operates a departure at 1015 direct, taking 49 minutes. The other four quoted options are interesting, though. They each require a change from the 4 at Broadstone at Poole bus station and take variously between 50 and 54 minutes. The quickest recommends using National Express Shuttle 035! The first suggests changing to TYB’s 1c, while the other two indicate a transfer on to W&D’s m1 or m2.
The following hour sees an even more adventurous option, still only taking 50 minutes. Take the 4 from opposite side of the Broadway, walk a little to Dunyeats Road, change to the Wimborne Flyer limited stop 3 to Poole and then the limited stop X3 for Bournemouth. Better bet is to walk to Dunyeats in the first place! The following four options also all take 49-50 minutes, including the through bus at 1115.
So, those who lament W&D’s June 2006 reduction from half-hourly to hourly between Broadstone and Bournemouth and who aren’t content with TYB’s hourly replacement month have more options than they think.
We suspect that they’ll stick with the through journey, though.
Thursday, 25 October 2007
Choices
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Should imagine that workers or those travelling later will like the change at Poole option. Wonder who will consider it, though? I was surprised that it takes so little additional time changing at Poole. Time for Wilts to promote this option?
Glad to see all the bus stop flags along route 18 have been replaced with brand new colour coded Yellow Buses / Poole Council / Traveline branded flags.
This will also increase awareness of 1b and 1c which are now more noticable from Bournemouth to Sea View via Westbourne, Branksome and Parkstone.
It's purly because of the fast Wimborne flyer service 3 that a journey from Broadstone to Bournemouth via Poole is relatively quick.
Perhaps the 3 (and the M5/M6) are partly to blame for the lack of trade on the 18 - passengers prefer the frequent alternatives even though they are to Poole rather than Bournemouth?
Staggering out of Asiana's restaurant into Wimborne Square a few nights ago, I noticed some shelter publicity referring to a new peak service Wimborne-CorfeMullen-HighfieldEstate-Broadstone being run by the council (through Nordcat), with connections onto the TYB 18, thereby partially plugging the gap not filled by TYB.
www.dorsetforyou.com has more info.
Traveline doesn't appear to have the details put on it yet, but when it does, your A to B (or rather B to B) experiment might throw up some other interesting permutations!
Dennis Dash - I don't think you can necessarily blame the 3 for the lack of trade on the 18.
It's more to do with Poole being a more attractive town centre shopping destination than Bournemouth. That explains why Wilts has invested in the 3 and the m5 and m6, I'd day.
Post a Comment