AlexAtkin

Case in point, I bought an e-bike as a mobility aid as I can't hold shopping bags in my hands and some days walking hurts my feet or my hip will go funny. I can't take it on buses or trams however useful that would be. Folding e-bikes are now cheaper but I'm not sure I could actually fold it given my disability is more severe in my hands. They're also harder to ride due to the smaller wheels. Its just not practical to cater for EVERY disability scenario on public transport, as much as I wish they could. I've had to stand up on a packed bus many times, despite the fact holding onto the bars with my hands is absolute agony. I never felt comfortable asking anyone for a seat given its an invisible disability I've had since childhood.

What I meant was me thinking it would fit is irrelevant seeing as we don't know the REAL reason she was refused, due to the fact she lied. The driver has every right to refuse if he thinks it poses a risk to other passengers, period. I just wish they did more often with prams as people seem to feel entitled to keep them folded out these days, while buying ones that are too big to fit on a bus (as they're designed for car use) in the first place. They take up more space than a wheelchair.

That doesn't look any wider than my mums wheelchair to me, although I can see how it might still be a problem as the buses aren't designed for it to be wide so high up. Also rather irrelevant if she lied about what the driver actually said. They do have to consider the safety of all the other passengers after all. Its rather uncommon in my experience for drivers to be awkward, in fact there are many times they let huge prams on the bus that are detrimental to everyone and really should be folded.

Same problem for cycling, especially as cyclists can usually use bus lanes. They put in cycle lanes, then have them double-up as parking so they can't be used. A serious lack of joined-up thinking. They are shared so both companies get their fair share of the revenue though. Making it a single operator would be anti-competitive. This is where bringing it under public control might be more efficient (in theory) but I'm extremely sceptical it would be any better as the government would probably demand they get the profit, rather than it be pumped back into running the less profitable routes. This is where it just can't work on a local basis, when you have the council and government at odds with each other. Its why I do feel it probably makes more sense to work within the current system than try to change it again. It does no good to keep ping-ponging between different methods without ever addressing the underlying problems.

If the buses end up bunching up and half empty then I agree too, its utterly pointless unless at some point on that route they're actually full. This is especially true if in order to run that frequency its causing other areas to not get a service at all. I live near the Herdings terminus and far too frequently you used to get three buses all arrive at once. Not used it much in years as usually going to the Train Station so use the tram, partly because that HAS to run on time. There's been too many times I was between trams and thought "oh I will get the bus", and the next tram would arrive before the bus, even though 2 buses would have been due. I don't pretend to know the solution, but I'd trust the people actually driving that route over anyone else.

Couldn't agree more. Its clear from what people have said on this thread that the core problem (apart from the attitude of some Sheffield people towards bus drivers) is not providing sufficient funding and mismanagement. Franchising public transport is not going to fix those issues and if anything may make them worse, as there will be an up-front cost in doing so, when those funds would be better spent actually funding unprofitable routes.

When they look up to people like Tucker Carlson, they feel untouchable.

You might be better off taking a photo of the bill and making it an NFT, they're all the rage, right? You get to keep the valuable original while the purchaser gloats at owning the "rights" to its digital copy.

Under that states law then yes that is true, doesn't mean that he is innocent. If you watched the actual footage its kinda hard to argue that he is blameless as he put himself in harms way and helped cause the situation that put him at risk in the first place. Its rather like if I ran into the middle of the road with ample time and space for the vehicles to stop, if they failed they would be at fault but I would likewise be to blame for putting myself at such stupid risk in the first place. Ironically in his case its like if I shot the driver of said vehicle because I thought it would hit me, yet that passes as "self defence" in that state. 😕 I don't know how you can say that someone who obtained a gun illegally and ran around waving it at people is "mature beyond his years". He fancied himself a vigilante and things went wrong, as expected really. Its also hardly "mature" to go around telling people (especially who is interviewing him at the time in that clip, who I cannot phrase what I think about him without getting banned from the forum) who you plan to sue.

Agreed. I believe in Nationalisation of essential services, IF it can be run and funded properly. However councils, especially South Yorkshire, have proven time and time again they simply can't handle it. Its too small a scale and with a Tory government they have zero interest in offering the help they need to make it work. Bearing in mind I'm an ex-Digital Region customer. They were way ahead of the curve delivering fast broadband to South Yorkshire, then had ZERO advertising budget so few people knew it existed and it went bankrupt. I also seem to recall they were forbidden from advertising on the cabinets by the government, but BT/Openreach have no such restriction, so when Openreach finally rolled out people immediately knew it was available despite there already being a VDSL cabinet there for years before that.

How so? Shes always seemed a very proactive, caring MP to me. I admit I am concerned she isn't seeing the bigger picture here, but then its not like I have any proof that the people posting on here are bus drivers or what they said are true. I believe it is as what's been said adds up, for one its never made any sense to me how we manage to have lower bus fares than other none-hilly cities, the running costs must be much higher. But has anyone actually discussed these issues with her? When the PTE can't even be bothered to let the council know they changed a bus route so they can adapt the gritting route, its not hard to imagine shes been misinformed.

Halfway has always seemed busy. Not sure on the current timetable but at certain times of day instead of just turning round at Cathedral it would run to Meadowhell. I've not been anywhere for 2 years though as mum is vulnerable so can't risk catching anything nasty.

I don't blame them, its such a short spur that the economics don't make much sense, it really did need to run all the way up to Meadowhead to be viable. But I'm glad its there none the less.

I can't agree, but then I'm at the Herdings end and mostly travel to the Train Station. Its a LOT more hassle using the bus as its a walk at the other end and buses have pathetic luggage space. I do agree it terminating at Herdings is kinda dumb though, but then there just isn't the space to run it up the dual carriageway to Meadowhead, even though we all wanted it to as public transport to there has been crap forever from here.

So we've got the usual group who complain cyclists go too slow, then when we try to maintain the speed limit someone comes along and complains were going too fast? LOL I think you're grossly underestimating how small a defect can be an absolute tragedy for a bike. I once broke my axle on a join between two sections of tarmac because it had eroded slightly. The braking distance on bicycles is HUGE, you need to see things from much further away even when only doing 20KM/h and especially on a downward hill.

Problem is its a chicken and egg situation. People don't want to use buses because they are unreliable, so they use cars causing congestion and obstructions when parking inconsiderately, which makes buses less reliable. Plus the horrific rise in kids vandalising buses and drivers getting sick of the abuse and quitting.

I can tell you first hand from cycling at night that the old lighting I couldn't see obstructions in the road until it was too late to avoid them, and my bike lights are powerful as they're built-in as its an e-bike. The difference was immediately obvious, I can see every little detail of the tarmac into the distance with the new lighting. There are the odd few expections of course, where the more directional light doesn't work because of poor location of the light on a steep road causing patches of shadow, but overall its a huge improvement. People often think its worse because the contrast between well lit and darker areas is so extreme, but that's proof its better lit as almost everywhere was equally dull before. Back to the buses, its also immediately obvious as from a distance you can see every detail in the bus (assuming the windows are clean) whereas before you couldn't. Also important note, we have cool white all through the house (well, my room is adjustable) as I have fatigue issues and my mum can't see with warm white. It improves safety for people with sight issues dramatically. Going back to the topic of council and PTE not communicating. I reported that the gritting routes had not been amended as my section of the road had recently been made part of a bus route (plus the PTE haven't changed the route on their online map), this is the response:

Which does work, thus why Sheffield has cool-white LED street lights. It also makes pot holes, mud and dog muck more visible which is especially useful for cyclists. So buses, pot holes, cyclists and the new street lighting - I think I managed to cover all the controversial topics. 😛

You can never be 100% sure anything stored online can't be leaked, but the chance of it happening is very very slim unless you're using a guessable password.

Reduce stops = too bad disabled and the elderly. There's also only finite space at a bus stop, if you have less of them that means more people queuing with no space to do so. No cash buses, similar problem as not everyone has facilities to top-up a card and the added problem if they suddenly find out when getting on the bus that their card has insufficient funds. Considering the abuse I've seen drivers take from some mothers on the school run for not having enough change, I'm sure this would go down REAL well. As others have said, a lot of bus routes wont fit a coach down it. Plus the major issue (besides cost) being a bus is designed so people can get on and off quickly, a coach is not. The timetables would be a whole hot mess every time someone used the wheelchair lift. Coaches are designed for relatively few stops with long waiting times. As for your earlier complaint about bus lighting, cool-white is used because our eyes are more sensitive to blue light. It keeps us more alert (last thing you want after a hard day at work is to fall asleep on the bus and miss your stop) and means they don't need to be as bright (thus saving energy) compared to warm white. Lastly, I just want to thank everyone on this thread on the inside of bus operation for opening my eyes to the situation. I'm glad I didn't fall for any of the petitions to re-nationalise the buses. As a socialist it can be a gut instinct to think its the way to go, not I feel much more informed of why it can't really work in Sheffield.

You seem to have missed the bit where this is a passive sub, its entirely driven from the integrated system so to use it on its own would need an amplifier of some sort. I doubt its going to be very simple to achieve this.

The 4K stick better be a huge upgrade over the normal Fire 4K then. I had it and returned it as it had so many issues. I'd honestly only risk getting a Roku as everything else seems to have some issue or another.

I have dabbled with the Pi but other than streaming a cheap Pi camera, I haven't really settled on a use case yet. Fortunately my TV has Plex, Amazon and Netflix plus my old WDTV Live is best for Bluray rips as it handled the lossless audio and doesn't exhibit frame-pacing/judder issues that other options seem to be prone to. (at least when using motion interpolation on the TV) I really do need to find where I left my Pi Zero W and try to the voice recognition thing though. The geek in my NEEDS to pretend I'm on the Enterprise telling the computer to turn my LIFX lights on and off. None of the "off the shelf" solutions quite do it for me.

You have to be careful with optical media drives as I made the mistake of buying a DVD writer that only has a single cable soldered directly onto the PCB. It not only stopped working after a while but my laptop couldn't give it enough power. I also got a Bluray writer recently that got jostled in shipping and would randomly work on my desktop but not on my laptop, until I shoved it properly into the caddy and tightened a screw on the back at which point it seems okay. Basically the cheap caddies a lot of sellers are using are okay, but not exactly robust and sometimes they put unsuitable drives in them that need more power than they support. But often drives that appear broken just need a little tlc, though granted if bought new you shouldn't have to worry about that.

Ubisoft sometimes have decent sales, then with the 20% off using points just for playing their games, they are actually one of the better publishers on PC for this and its usually cheaper to just buy off UPlay directly due to this.