DC1990

It's £11 return without a railcard or £7.25 with a railcard.

So, having had a brief look at the proposals a few things come to mind. Firstly, lots of direct links seem to be lost and there's no word on how this will affect people. Making changes between buses in the city centre isn't always easy and often involves changing at different locations in each direction. Will routes through the city centre be simplified to allow for this? No information is given on routes through the city centre but these will be important for many people. Cutting down the number of buses on the roads and simplifying the network to have less bus routes still serving the whole city seems a good aim in theory but having seen how busy some bus routes get I wonder if the proposed frequencies of some routes will be adequate. Will single deck buses be replaced by double deckers? I like the fact that this is quite a radical shake-up and I think that having one big change is generally better than tinkering around the edges, but some things just don't seem to add up. Bus numbers in particular seem to be a mess, too much fragmentation and inconsistency. Call me pedantic but...: -Are we using # and #A (1/1A, 2/2A...) to denote similar routes or are we using # and #+1 (7/8, 73/74) -Why do some routes with #A options seemingly share a timetable (again 1/1A, 2/2A...) whilst other similar routes seemingly don't (6 and 6A, 10 and 10A)? -There's a 15A but no regular 15? -1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 31... Some numbers respresent more than one route, others none at all. Why? -Presumably lower numbers should be given to high frequency, important bus routes. This is the case for the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Not 6, but 7/8 (why not 7/7A?) and 9 are. 10/10A aren't? 51, 52 and 120 are two of the most frequent routes but routes 11-14 aren't being used and 6 and 10 are occupied by irregular services? Why? All in all there's some good stuff in there but it really needs to be thought through.

I personally absolutely love Sheffield and I think it's a fantastic city. We certainly shouldn't worry about not being something we're not. Rather we should be proud of what we are. It seems to me that Sheffield is one of the UK's best kept secrets. There are many things that Sheffield is lacking that it really could do with, the city centre does need more shopping areas and certain areas need redeveloping but that's already happening (albeit slower that would be ideal). So we might not have everything huge and over the top that Manchester and Leeds have, but I for one don't want to live in a city occupied by nothing but intimidating and overbearing high rise tower blocks. I go to these places and feel completely out of place. Ultimately though, what other city has the history of Sheffield? The friendliness of Sheffield? The diversity of Sheffield? The greenness of Sheffield? Ultimately, what I see in Sheffield is a big, albeit all too often overlooked city that's got a lot of character, a good atmosphere, is really friendly and is a genuinely nice place to be. Sure, I'd like to see more funding and development in the city, but I want that to help make Sheffield more... well... Sheffieldy. Sheffield should be a first-rate Sheffield and not a second rate Leeds (or any other city for that matter)!

This is very true, although whether or not they'll do that is another matter. Unfortunately where the railways are concerned it seems that things like that aren't normally considered. In fairness, I just look forward to seeing the work done. Services across the North really do need improvements (especially in capacity) and if nothing else extra carriages would be a good thing.

I am a bit of a rail enthusiast and know all of that to be fair. I'm just looking at things from the logical point of view that realistically electrifying only as far as Sheffield is surely missing an opportunity. Don't get me wrong, of course they can't do them all at the same time, but it would be possible to do more, and in particular Sheffield-Leeds/Doncaster and Derby-Birmingham would make sense to allow through trains from the MML to run further north and to allow XC to use electric trains for the majority of the northern section of the route (particularly useful if the eVoyager project goes ahead which is hopefully will).

Any rail improvements between Sheffield and Manchester would be welcome. The main issue seems to be capacity. I don't particularly know if a third express an hour is needed but the existing express trains could do with being doubled in size. Same goes for the cross country services too as far as that goes. Personally though, in terms of rail improvements I can't help but think that a bit of joined up thinking would be good. At the same sort of time as the Trans-Pennine and MML electrification for examply, surely it would make sense to electrify Sheffield-Manchester, Sheffield-Leeds, Sheffield-Doncaster, Sheffield-Nottingham and Derby-Birmingham could also be electrified so that there's not just various little bits of unelectrified mainline radiating from Sheffield.

I popped into the new market the other day, and although it's very light and airy and much more welcoming, a massive improvement on Castle Market, I just can't help but think that certain aspects haven't really been thought through properly. The main issue I have has to be the layout. I don't know if anyone else has found the same when they've been there but the stalls in the middle being in rows diagonally just didn't seem to work. It seemed to create lots of bottlenecks around the edges and also made certain things difficult to find (Like the toilets for example, I can't help but think that they should be near the entrance or at the very least that there should be a clear path directly to them from the entrance without fighting your way through seemingly randomly placed stalls. I mean, why diagonals? Whatever is wrong with simple horizontal and vertical line? They might not be awe inspiring but at least they'd be more easily navigable! For me personally I'd have perhaps liked stalls better organised into categories to keep similar stalls together but that's probably just me being over the top with my need for things being neatly arranged and ordered. As for the selection of stalls though, I think that it seems fairly decent so far. I don't understand why so many people seem to have been complaining on that front. There are a lot of empty stalls at the minute and I would like to see more speciality and unique stalls opening amongst them but on the most part I think the selection is fine at the moment. In short, nice market but can we redesign the layout please?!

I can see where you're coming from on that one, although personally I do still think that a city centre station would be a better option given the public transport links. Don't get me wrong-there's lots of transport between Sheffield and Meadowhall but much of it is already crowded (although hopefully that will be improved, and preferably a long time before HS2! Local public transport is disgraceful, particularly the local rail services). I think another thing that often gets overlooked (and this kind of adds on to my point about having through stations rather than termini) is that not everyone wants to travel to and from London/Birmingham. There are many, for example who might want to travel North to Leeds, York and beyond from Sheffield and the East Midlands. A sheffield city centre station would also be more convenient for someone who for instance, wanted to travel north from Chesterfield, who to use the East Midlands Parkway station would have to travel south to go back North again. Don't get me wrong, there are certainly advantages of both sites, but I personally feel that city centre is a better option. That said, nobody knows what may change between now and then. Sheffield (and particularly the local transport infrastructure) may have changed a lot by the 2030s and some other option might be better still. Who knows?

Is it just me, or is HS2 fundamentally a good idea but the current plans just a complete and utter mess. To me, the HS2 as it stands is going to cause more problems than it solves, and the debate in Sheffield is a typical example of where things just don't seem to have been thought through. I mean, we have a 2 track network where we should have at least 3 (and preferably 4). We have planned stations as termini when they should be through stations to allow for future expansions. For some reason to get from London to Yorkshire you have to go to near Birmigham-all the time taken to get to Birmingham with none of the advantages of actually going through/stopping at Birmingham! Stations on the outskirts of cities where they should be in the city centres where people actually want to be. And finally, stations that either don't actually connect to anything at all, or that connect to something that isn't needed and/or isn't sufficient. Don't get me wrong, doing all of that would be very expensive, but if you're spending £50bn on a project anyway, isn't it better to get it right to begin with? To me, Sheffield is just an example of where these issues are at the worst. A station at Meadowhall is a completely ludicrous option. It means people from Sheffield have to travel 5 minutes north by train, take 10 minutes changing train, and by the time they've done they'd might has well just got on the current direct East Midlands Trains service anyway! Yes, Meadowhall might be slightly closer to Rotherham and Barnsley, but realistically people from Rotherham and Barnsley would have to change either way so doesn't it make more sense for those who have to make a change anyway to make that change 5 minutes further south than to impose a change of train on everyone? As for Doncaster, surely that's a non-issue? It already has the east coast mainline which is not only surely more convenient than changing trains to use HS2, but also offers better connections at Kings Cross once in London than HS2 would at Euston. Bearing that in mind, the best place for a station in Sheffield is surely at Sheffield station... I don't know how possible that is or exactly what it would take to do that, I'm not an engineer, but if that is too expensive or impractical (which I presume it most likely would be) then surely a station at Victoria with a people mover linking to Sheffield Midland/Sheffield Bus Station would be the most sensible alternative. To me, that's all just logic and common sense!

Oh joy, another 5 years to wait! Because we've all had so much fun waiting for the past 5 years. I love Sheffield, I really do, but why does it have to get anything done? It's not like this is a trivial little vanity project, it's a massive improvement that the city needs now, not in another 5 years. Sure, there's a limit to what can be done at any one time, but priorities just seem all wrong.

Sheffield city centre has some fantastic areas. Fargate, Orchard Square, The Peace gardens and such are all great places, and it's good to see The Moor coming along nicely. It's a real shame though that there has been so much trouble with Sevenstone though as it would have been a much needed addition to the city and a good connection between surrounding areas. What is important now though is to get the ball rolling again, and sooner rather than later. There's already been too much wasted time and Sheffield desperately needs more facilities. People need more facilities and although they cost money to provide it is surely better to have these in Sheffield and draw people to the city than it is to have people heading out of the city to get what they need. Sheffield is a massive city, and one that I love greatly. It's a real shame that it just doesn't get the investment that it needs and deserves.

Plenty of empty space in and around the city. I can't understand why a beautiful old building like that needs to be demolished. I'm all for new builds and modernisation, but it doesn't need to be at the expense of buildings such as that one.

I can't help but wonder why there are so many service changes. Is a simple network of frequent and reliable buses really that much to ask? Getting from A to B needn't be complicated. I'm not particularly a fan of changes, but if they want to make changes then surely making all of the changes that need making at once and getting them done with is by far more sensible than tinkering with services every couple of months. I mean, personally I'm still trying to figure out how one route (120) can be operated by two different companies, with each running different routes at different times of the day and on different days of the week, despite only having one number. Madness, and yet it's somehow supposed to make things more simple. :s