South Yorkshire Bus Service Needs Improvement

[RollingJ 2,035]

Thought not.

[BigAl1 143]

Talking about buses and the skill and expertise of our council and the PTE I could not help but remember that at the  Hillsborough Interchange that the routes 81 and 82pass by the interchange heading to town but do not stop at the interchange .  not even sure if you were wishing to catch one there is any info where to go to catch it. Odd concept for an interchange

 

[butlers 261]

81/ 82 goes from 20 yds up road towards town

[RollingJ 2,035]

47 minutes ago, Bigal1 said:

Talking about buses and the skill and expertise of our council and the PTE I could not help but remember that at the  Hillsborough Interchange that the routes 81 and 82pass by the interchange heading to town but do not stop at the interchange .  not even sure if you were wishing to catch one there is any info where to go to catch it. Odd concept for an interchange

 

 

IIRC, Hillsborough Interchange is a terminal for quite a few services, and once the bays are full, there is little manoeuvring room, but other services going through the area have stops fairly close by, as @butlers kindly points out.

[Guest busdriver1]

15 hours ago, butlers said:

The free bus service is costed at less than a half million a year running cost.

 

 

 

 

 

The previous argument for the provision of this service was that it cost the PTE less than paying the local operators for the provision on commercial services. Given the horrifically low rate that operators are paid for ENCTS pass use this is quite astounding. 

[Guest busdriver1]

21 hours ago, Andy C said:

I'm not entirely convinced Leopold Street/Pinstone Street was necessary for the Covid initiative - mostly wide pavements and traffic was already mostly just bikes and buses.

 

In the longer term pedestrianisation of it all except for a cycle lane may well make the area a much nicer place to be.

 

It could even be argued that given most of the shopping  is now refocused around the Moor and Devonshire Quarter that there is less demand for travel to that part of the City Centre.

 

My bigger issue is the council whilst claiming to promote green methods of travel they seem to be downgrading public transport facilities and encouraging people to travel by car instead. There seems to be no integration of public transport facilities in the planning of these changes and absolutely no interest from the council in supporting a quality public transport experience in Sheffield.

A fact that gets conveniently forgotten when justification is being given for the diversion is what they describe as only a short distance to the new bus stop sites. That may be the case for our able bodied counsellors but misses the fact that the original bus stops were unlikely to be the final destination for those bus passengers of whom several will have mobility issues. They will have already faced quite a walk to get where they were going and that has now been extended by a good amount to accommodate the massive uptake in cycling that we are told is going to  happen. I have no doubt that the area will be nice to be in, it will be quiet for sure. In the meantime hundreds of people will be struggling to make journies or changing their habits and going elsewhere.

[Resident 1,189]

23 minutes ago, busdriver1 said:

A fact that gets conveniently forgotten when justification is being given for the diversion is what they describe as only a short distance to the new bus stop sites. That may be the case for our able bodied counsellors but misses the fact that the original bus stops were unlikely to be the final destination for those bus passengers of whom several will have mobility issues. They will have already faced quite a walk to get where they were going and that has now been extended by a good amount to accommodate the massive uptake in cycling that we are told is going to  happen. I have no doubt that the area will be nice to be in, it will be quiet for sure. In the meantime hundreds of people will be struggling to make journies or changing their habits and going elsewhere.

A very salient point. 

I travel around the city a lot during the day. It's VERY rare that I see a cyclist using the provided infrastructure, provided for their safety and of other road users, instead opting to remain on the highway.

I'm not opposed to cyclists on the roads but I do, STRONGLY, believe that some road training, explaination of the laws akin to CBT is needed. I'm sure someone will be along to decree that many cyclists are also drivers. 

Well they may know how to use the roads as a driver but not understand the nuiances & differences for cyclists. We don't give HGVs to people who have just passed their car test without further training now do we? 

[RollingJ 2,035]

16 hours ago, butlers said:

The free bus service is costed at less than a half million a year running cost.

 

 

 

 

 

So, where is the money coming from for a service which will probably not go anywhere useful (who will decide the route?) and merely add to traffic congestion?

[Guest busdriver1]

13 minutes ago, RollingJ said:

So, where is the money coming from for a service which will probably not go anywhere useful (who will decide the route?) and merely add to traffic congestion?

The argument was put forward during the operation of the Freebee that it cost less to provide the free bus than to pay operators for the same provision on their commercial services thus freeing up seats on commercial services and removing short hop journies on them making them more reliable. 

HOWEVER. These figures came  from the PTE at a time when it was fashionable to provide free bus services n city centres, so make of it what you will.

29 minutes ago, Resident said:

A very salient point. 

I travel around the city a lot during the day. It's VERY rare that I see a cyclist using the provided infrastructure, provided for their safety and of other road users, instead opting to remain on the highway.

I'm not opposed to cyclists on the roads but I do, STRONGLY, believe that some road training, explaination of the laws akin to CBT is needed. I'm sure someone will be along to decree that many cyclists are also drivers. 

Well they may know how to use the roads as a driver but not understand the nuiances & differences for cyclists. We don't give HGVs to people who have just passed their car test without further training now do we? 

On Friday, I was nearly run over by a cyclist riding down the pavement wearing headphones and using his mobile phone whilst not using the handlebars. He was obviously a well trained cyclist and I look forward to meeting more of his ilk.

[RollingJ 2,035]

17 minutes ago, busdriver1 said:

The argument was put forward during the operation of the Freebee that it cost less to provide the free bus than to pay operators for the same provision on their commercial services thus freeing up seats on commercial services and removing short hop journies on them making them more reliable. 

HOWEVER. These figures came  from the PTE at a time when it was fashionable to provide free bus services n city centres, so make of it what you will.

On Friday, I was nearly run over by a cyclist riding down the pavement wearing headphones and using his mobile phone whilst not using the handlebars. He was obviously a well trained cyclist and I look forward to meeting more of his ilk.

Paragraphs (1+2) sounds almost plausible, but still added to congestion and journey duplication, and as the source of the figures is rather dubious, I will take them with a couple of pounds of salt.

 

Paragraph (3) That type of moron needs taking off the road and putting in his playpen - obviously not safe to be let out of the house.

Edited April 25, 2021 by RollingJ

[Guest busdriver1]

23 minutes ago, RollingJ said:

Paragraphs (1+2) sounds almost plausible, but still added to congestion and journey duplication, and as the source of the figures is rather dubious, I will take them with a couple of pounds of salt.

To be fair here, the majority of journies undertaken were actually NOT duplicates of existing available journies. I.E. Bus station to Arundel gate & Pinstone street. As someone who was on it often, I was surprised that very little was taken from the commercial services. It is also dubious that they knew where passholders were alighting on Commercial services since that is only ever recorded when PTE data gatherers travelled on the services so that data would e a very low sample.

[RollingJ 2,035]

Fair enough - I had forgotten where it went, and very rarely used it.