Trains, Transpennine Express
In Site news on September 1, 2009 at 10:43 am
On my hillwalking blog, I did share, on an occasional basis, some experiences and observations of British and Irish public transport. However, since a posting regarding being crammed into a Transpennine Express train while travelling to and from Edinburgh last year, I have been diverting such content here; I reckoned that it had no place amongst the hill walking stuff. Public transport can attract its share of flak but you have to wonder if it’s overdone. Saying that, it’s all too easy to go off on a rant when things go against you but those pieces not so easy to read afterwards. That’s why I plan to avoid letting off steam on here and include some good news stories too. That’s never to say that criticism will be avoided when it’s due but what I offer should be constructive in tone. Changing the tune towards suggestions for changes for the better has become the feel of such pieces and that’s a trend that I hope to continue. After all, I am a friend of public transport and believe that there are times and places when car use cannot be justified. Some will counter that bus and train services cannot serve every need and it’s an undeniable reality but keeping those situations to a minimum should be something for which we all strive. Towards that end, I’ll be keeping tabs on latest developments of which I hear and letting you know when I spot anything of interest.
130, 27, A34, A537, Alderley Edge, Cheshire, Cheshire East Council, Nether Alderley, Road Works, Satellite Tracking, Wilmslow
In Buses, Coaches, News on November 7, 2009 at 8:25 am
It now appears that I might have been too hopeful when I mused that traffic conditions might improve next month because anyone braving the A34 around Monk’s Heath faces almost certain disruption from next Monday week (2009-11-16). Included among these is the widening and resurfacing of Bollington Lane along with the installation of new sets of traffic lights at either end. After that, there’s the adding of an extra lane at the Monk’s Heath traffic lights so that traffic from the Alderley Edge direction are not held up by anyone seeking to turn right at what at times is a very busy junction.
The scale of these changes makes it sound that they will be ongoing for a while so you only can hope that any inconvenience is kept to a minimum. In a way, this is counterbalanced by the coming to an end of the work at the Harden roundabout on the Wilmslow side of Alderley Edge as part of the construction of its bypass. Even so, there has to be an impact of bus service timings with all of this going on and at a time when the hours of daylight are limited too. It’s just as well that Cheshire East Council has their bus tracker in place for the very buses that will be impacted by all of this. Is that why it was set up in the first place?
Cheshire, Buses, Traffic, Wilmslow, Road Works, Alderley Edge, Highways Agency, M6, B5087, A34
In Buses, Happenings, Observations on November 6, 2009 at 12:23 pm
It’s an oft discussed topic but you do get to wondering how things might be if we didn’t bother with winter time and stuck with its summer counterpart all of the year around. I am led to believe that summer time continued into the winter months during WW2 with double summer time coming into force when BST usually would hold sway. By all accounts, everyone got along and it looks as if it would have been the least of the troubles that anyone faced.
However, I have noticed that November evening traffic is blighted with disruption from time to time and wonder if not putting back the clocks would help. There was an occasion when an overturned lorry between Alderley Edge and Wilmslow severely disrupted my journey home from work, delaying it by next to 90 minutes. We may have satellite tracking of buses (Cheshire East Timeline) these times so you can stay indoors until the bus is near but it is too easy to let disbelief take over when buses don’t seem to be moving at all and go outside to make sure of getting home; the onset of darkness concentrates the mind. That’s how it appeared on Tuesday night and the tracker hadn’t packed in as suspected but traffic had backed up to an horrendous level because of road works due to the construction of the Alderley Edge bypass and some work on the B5087 within that village itself.
That bypass should help avoid instances like those described above but you can get closures on the M6 too so I wonder how it would cope with the motorway traffic. It goes without saying that the village of Alderley Edge cannot take the onslaught with its pedestrian lights, junctions and school and such a situation had me keeping an eye on the Highways Agency website for a while (the BBC’s Travel News website is a useful port of call too). Cheshire East Council’s bus tracker easily dispatches that habit to history and things do seem to calm down in December. Nevertheless, it is striking how traffic chaos still occurs from time to time during an economic recession.
