There is a little reshuffle of bus stops on Royal Parade coming up on the 5th May.
Plymouth Citybus
From Sunday 5th May to co-inside with our service revision, some of the bus stop allocations on Royal Parade will be changing. Please see below for a list of services that will be affected, highlighting where the new stops will be for these services.
- SERVICE 13 & 16 will move to A15
- SERVICE 20 will move to A14
- SERVICE 33/33A & 34 will move to A5
- SERVICE 42/42A will move to A17
- SERVICE 50 will move to A17
Below is a map with all Royal Parade Stops highlighted.
First Devon & Cornwall
- From Sunday 5 May 2013 some services will be moving from their current bus stop to new stops on Royal Parade in Plymouth.
- Service 4 (City Centre - Milehouse - Dockyard - Keyham) Will move to stop A15 (outside Antics)
- Service 15 (City Centre - Mutley - Crownhill - UCP Marjon - Derriford Hospital - Estover/Mainstone) Will move to A18(outside Debenhams)
- Service 81/81A (Plymouth - Devonport - Torpoint) Will move to A5 (outside Theatre Royal)
I am glad that the 15 is still pretty close to the 50 as it would have been a real pain if they had been separated too much!
PT Recommends
- So looking at the poster in the frame at Leuchars station, you would expect something to encourage you into trusting information about that excellent 10 minute frequency with its surprising selection of suffix-supplemented service numbers Public Transport Experience
- David Bell visited Lincoln last week, the city's main bus operator is Stagecoach in Lincolnshire who operate both urban local services as well as county services Andys Bus Blog
It will be a bit of a pain now with the 21s going from A10, and the 20 up at A14! Been told however this is so that A11 can be an 'official' alighting stop for the 29/43s group of services and also alighting stops for other rural services, e.g. WGL.
ReplyDeletePersonally I think the 8/9 and 23/24 should all go from A11 as they're being merged, as to avoid confusion with passengers from the 8 and 9 being dropped off all the way down at A7! However even as A11 will now have no services operating from it, it wouldn't have capacity for the 8/9/23/24 to all go from one stop, even without the fact it's an alighting stop for services coming in from the west of the City.
On a separate note, glad to see A5 has been put into use rather than just somewhere for buses to layover especially in the early evening - at about 7-8PM it's packed full of various buses with drivers taking a break before starting their next service!
Does this now mean that no services depart from A1?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this is going to be used for terminating services instead especially as the use of A5 now means the Megabus is homeless, possibly moving to A6, which would then mean there is no room outside the Theatre Royal for buses on layovers or drop offs.
With the 20 moving this means A12 and 11 are exclusively for Park & Ride, but does nothing to alleviate the problems of A9, where 7 services try to depart from the same stop - usually at the same time (and even worse when Target use the stop for their layovers). Which is not helped by the 21/A and 45 all trying to cram on to A10, usually 3 at a time, which blocks in anything on A9. Currently the 5/A and 48 can wait at A5/6 if needed before going round is the stop is too full, but with A5 in use plus the Megabus, that facility would be lost.
Interesting everything is moving away from A1 - the only service that will depart from there now is the hourly Target Travel 14! It's true, that end gets very congested with the Torpoint services laying over there, the 3s and 26s spilling over into A1, on top of the 33 laying over as well. I would have thought it would have been sensible to keep the 34 on A1 though considering people travelling to Stonehouse, Cremyll Ferry, Devonport and the bottom of Stoke do use both the 26 and 34 - now it will have to be one or the other. The passengers waiting for 3s to Devonport will also be very unlikely to use the 81A that runs down the same way now as well, although of course this isn't really the aim of running the 81A down Union Street.
ReplyDeleteThere is no ideal solution for Royal Parade until it is made a buses only road in both directions. Stops could then be laid out differently on a slight herring bone pattern, although I am not convinced this would even solve the problem. Unfortunately there will never be a return to the subway in the centre of the Parade so that does not help to increase the space available for buses on the Parade. These changes have been agreed with the operators following safety concerns raised by PCC. It's not perfect and as always everyone will have a better idea. The 20 goes with the 8 and 9 as they all serve Alexandra Road. There were several compromises made by both operators and PCC in order to reach the planned changes. It had to be a fair agreement with neither of the major operators being seen to gain a commercial advantage. To that end PCC have been fully supportive and helpful. Personally I would have liked to have seen PR1 and PR2 rerouted and moved across to the theatre side but there was no appetite for this by FDC or PCC. So we have what we have and we will all have to make the best of it - drivers and customers alike.
ReplyDeleteNow here's a thought of mine which has been floated as an alternative idea going forward. Buses serving the north of the city via Mutley operate via Cornwall Street which becomes a one way street for buses only from what was Woolies to the back of the Mall. This would need a redesign of the Coburg Street North Hill, Charles Street junction but would take loads of pressure off the Parade.
Doubtless the regular respondents will have ideas of their own and will tear my idea to pieces; however, any further improvements to Royal Parade will require vision and bravery to introduce. Unfortunately I can't see anything radical coming along in the foreseeable future which is a great shame.
Indeed, I second what you're saying Brian, that the Royal Parade congestion problem will never really be properly solved unless a radical, brave change is implemented, which I too think is extremely unlikely.
DeleteHaving the 20 moved to A14 means it's close to the 8 and 9 so this will be more useful for customers travelling to Lipson, especially on Sundays. (On a separate note I'm glad to see the Sunday 20 Service remains!)
Back on topic though, having given it some thought, Brian's idea about having the 40s group of services (Southway Whitleigh and Tamerton) operating via a one-way buses only Cornwall Street would be great. It would need to be considerably clearer that it is a road though, with proper tarmac and markings, maybe even railings. Sadly, I also agree I doubt we’ll be seeing any changes as radical as this over the coming years, which is a shame as I really do believe Brian’s idea above is something that would be a huge benefit to everyone. I would be interested to hear from anyone who opposes the idea described by Brian, just to hear another point of view.
If PCC got their act together with the appalling access around the 'ring road', then all buses could operate one way or the other round the outside of the shopping area very much like the 1/A and 81s. Thus the 29 & 43/A/B would run Cobourg Street - Viaduct - RP - Western Approach, the 34 Western Approach - Cobourg St - Viaduct - RP - Union Street, 5/A Charles Street - Western Approach - RP - Viaduct etc etc. However being careful not to overload Mayflower Street.
ReplyDeleteThis would stop buses dropping off one side of the parade and reloading on the other, so eradicating the problem of them trying to fit in wherever they can. However this would not be possible with the congestion that Drake Circus causes.