Bus Stop

A Cumbrian writes...

The tide seems to be turning for pro-bus routings within city centres. After Manchester council banning buses from Corporation Street in favour of Shudehill Interchange and fewer cross-city routes, other local authorities seem keen on their streets getting quieter.

Much traffic in Oxford city centre now seems to be buses—but the local authority has announced plans to make it, from next year, at least as far a walk to some bus stops as to the remaining multi-storey car park (and presumably as far as the inner-city private parking from which all cars seem to emerge in the evening peak). See the Oxford & Chiltern Bus Page.

There haven't been cross-city routes in Oxford for some time now, but the council plan seems like creating a town centre like Runcorn's—except without an inner ring road, let along an inner ring busway. I'd expect more leakage for Oxfordians to more accessible centres like Milton Keynes or Aylesbury. Others, meanwhile, will probably lump it and walk. How much do you feel like spending after a half-mile walk?

I expect similar news in Newcastle, where a plan aims for a third bus station on the south east side of the city centre. Nice idea except, like Manchester, it will probably mean pedestrianising some of the cross-city bus arteries, principally through Blackett Street and Market Street. Users will lose a choice of city centre boarding points. As an indication of things to come, Go North East managed to cause a furore a few months ago by routing Newcastle-bound buses on the X1, X2, X3 (Red Arrow) and X30, X31, X70 and X71 (West Durham Swifts) away from the Tyne Bridge and onto Grey Street, which Newcastle council's designs had reserved for the under-loaded QuayLink. The routing only lasted a week.

Presently less penetrative routings through city centres are about either operational convenience or the location of pleasant waiting facilities (bus stations). Planners may like to be able to wander down and across the road as they please, but shoppers and workers may not wish to. It's a difficult one to balance. The most likely outcome will be increasing leakage to more accessible out of town business & retail developments. Or internet shopping. Good luck, shopkeepers.

Is our Cumbrian contributor right? Is pedestrianisation a good or bad thing for bus users? If a town relies on buses for between 45-60 per cent of its shoppers or more, is adequate weight given to bus services? Or should town centres rid themselves of *all* traffic for the sake of everyone and the environment, thereby indirectly benefiting bus users, too?

Omnibuses' Northern Correspondent adds: No one can deny that Chester’s pedestrianisation has been anything other than a success. It was a 20-year process, with full pedestrianisation achieved in 1995. But there was a cost to bus operators, notably Chester City Transport. The then transport department reckoned that the main phases of pedestrianisation cost it two extra peak vehicles. This was because routes from the main terminus suddenly became indirect and took longer. Chester isn't a large city and fortunately a number of routes can still penetrate parts of the centre, which means passengers don’t have too far to walk; others leave from the bus exchange and never see another city centre bus stop.