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Tag Archives: Wilmslow

Of Blocked Roads and Grumpy Blokes

02 Feb

Last evening’s journey home turned out to be a hell of a lot more interesting than I expected. While I was aware of water mains works resulting in temporary traffic lights on the Wilmslow side of Alderley Edge, the one thing that I hadn’t expected was a road traffic accident to take place in the same area as well. Emergency services were on the scene with the telltale blue lights flashing atop their vehicles.

As a result, the bus driver turned around his bus and asked if anyone was going to Alderley Edge before going on to say that they needed to walk the rest of the way. However, the sight of moving cars prompted a protest from the one passenger who was affected. To placate him, the bus was turned around again but driver still decided that there was no way through for him and the annoyed passenger had no option but to leave at that point. Before this settlement was reached, some untoward comments about driving quality and another passenger decided to act as a mediator in order to bring the situation to a somewhat dignified close.

After that, the bus was again turned in the road and it seemed to be a difficult thing to do the second time around too. Alderley Edge wasn’t served and we were taken around the Alderley Edge by-pass instead. To the driver’s credit, we did call at Alderley Park even if we went the opposite way around to what is usual and passage over every speed bump was jarring. In the end, we all got home and that probably is more than could be said for anyone waiting in Alderley Edge; I don’t envy them one bit and I hope any injuries in that accident weren’t fatal or serious.

Update: Interestingly, I since discovered that the previous bus for Macclesfield got through the accident area to serve Alderley Edge. What was different when mine was passing? Did one driver see things differently from another or did something change between the passage of both vehicles (the second was 15 minute late too)? It is hard to answer those questions exactly so I’ll leave them open for now.

 
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Posted by on February 2, 2011 in Buses, Happenings, Incidents, Journeys, News

 

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Rough rides

25 Sep

Homeward journeys on the 130 from Wilmslow to Macclesfield have seen me experience jarring rides along the way. That the buses were running late because of heavy traffic would be the best explanation for their being driven in a hurry. After all, these were the penultimate services operated by Arriva but the commercial service offering calls it a day ahead of the council-supported ones that Bakerbus of Biddulph provide; they are far more sedate in comparison to the experiences being related here and recent late departure from the office had me on one, the first time that I had ridden in a Bakerbus since they lost the Macclesfield-Knutsford contract to Bowers (part of Centrebus nowadays). A driver with his mind focused on finishing his shift can have his foot on the loud pedal for much of the time.

Add rough roads and you come away with the feeling that you are being carried in a bone shaker. In fact, that’s how it felt on the 18:46 from Wilmslow on Friday when it was running 10 minutes late. Every imperfection in the A34 around Alderley Edge gave us all a good rattling. While it might be better to have smoother roads, the current public spending environment probably makes that a forlorn hope. The same constraint probably means that the aging Dennis Darts that ply the route of the 130 will remain with us for a while yet and I cannot see Arriva making them ride better though complaining might make them aware of the problem.

Even with tarmac, roads always had their rough patches and riding a bike is as good a way as any to test the quality of a road surface. Every excavation by a utility company leaves behind a bumpy patch no matter how much they protest that they’re doing their best with resurfacing. Add repeated uprootings and a council will need to look at the situation though we’ll need to wait a good while for good kind of attention at the moment.

Until the A34 around Alderley Edge gets resurfaced and we get buses which ride better, drivers might do well to realise that rattling their passengers on the way home is not good for business. Keeping other road users such as cyclists in mind too would be a good thing as an incident on Thursday evening where a cyclist got cut up at one of Wilmslow’s roundabouts. No harm was done apart from having a irate gentleman thumping the side of the bus and shouting. The bus driver simply carried on and I wonder what impression of the bus industry was being given there. Distracted rushing can do harm…

 
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Posted by on September 25, 2010 in Buses, Happenings, Journeys, Observations, Timetables

 

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Would have been faster to cycle

09 Sep

If my journey home took up any more, it nearly might have been faster to walk all of the way. The cause was a spot of bother on the M6 that sent all manner of traffic along the A34 instead. The result was a very congested Nether Alderley with southbound traffic proceeding at less than walking pace; northbound seemed to be doing far better on this score. Surprisingly, Wilmslow was quite clear when I left it and Alderley Edge wasn’t so bad either. When I finally got to Macclesfield, there seemed to be more cars around the town than usual for the time of day though all was free-flowing.

The sight of a Manchester-bound Megabus heading into Wilmslow was a hint of things to come. It must have been displaced from the M6 like so many and the sight of articulated lorry after articulated lorry really brought home the scale of the problem. Small wonder then that the people of Alderley Edge have been demanding the by-pass that now is under construction. Another thing that I was to spot a Co-operative wagon that had pulled up somewhere to very sensibly sit out the logjam. Quite how an ambulance was getting through could only be explained by the sight of flashing lights and the sound of its siren making everyone do the right thing.

Though I had to sit out a long journey, I was glad to be on the bus and not waiting for it. The vehicle wasn’t the largest either and I am not so sure that it is wise for Arriva to be running an Optare Solo at rush hour like it has been doing. Maybe, it’s the advertising for the Cheshire East bus tracker that is the reason but I still consider it best to run bigger buses at peak travel times.

Nevertheless, I do wonder at the wisdom of my deciding not to cycle to work this morning. Yes, the weather did look less than enticing but it stayed dry all day. Even reprising yesterday evening’s sun-blessed route around by Mobberley, Great Warford, Marthall, Chelford and Monk’s Heath would have taken considerably less time than this evening’s allegedly more direct journey. Even so, that’s food for thought for the future now.

 
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Posted by on September 9, 2010 in Buses, Happenings, Incidents, Journeys

 

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On electronic ticketing

30 Jul

Alternative ways of getting travel tickets have become normal for the airline industry over the past decade and I suppose that the approach was bound to be adopted by other modes of transport too. Possibly inspired by Megabus, National Express and Scottish Citylink have been selling electronic tickets over the web for a while now. In my case, quite a number of trips to and around Scotland have made good use of being able to print out the tickets at home rather than waiting for them to arrive by post. In fact, getting things through the ether of the web has made many a last minute escape a reality.

All of the while that I have been enjoying speedy ticket delivery through my PC, others have been making good use of mobile phone ticketing. On a weekend visit to Fort William, I spotted damp weekend explorers wondering if they had enough mobile phone battery power to show the driver the tickets for a return to Glasgow. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe that National Express does likewise though I cannot anyone actually proffering such a thing on alighting one of their coaches.

More recently, Arriva started experimenting with mobile phone tickets on its buses. The initial pilot must have been successful but it has extended to all parts of their network now with Cheshire having them too. To use the facility, it might be best to have a so-called smartphone in order to go down the mobile electronic route. A recent acquisition of a Blackberry in advance of a change of job set me up nicely. Also, that change of working circumstances means that I need to stick with Arriva for the daily commute when I am not using a bicycle to do the honours. With the latter set-up, I was going to work my way through many weekly tickets. They may make useful bookmarks afterwards but there’s only so many of those that anyone needs.

It was the prospect of cutting down on paper detritus that drew me to giving mobile tickets a go. You can choose daily, weekly or monthly tickets and I chose the middle option for a first trial. There is a need for website registration that sends a message to your phone for verification and a PIN for using the service too. That’s a necessity when you are drawing funds from a credit card to pay for any tickets that you buy; just get rid of that original message for more security. An application was added to my phone to do the required ticket acquisition. Unlike buying a ticket on a bus, you can buy ahead of time and activate on first use so there is no need until the day when you need it at all. Mind you, you do need to keep your phone in working order and I wouldn’t like to be stood in an area where mobile phone signal is weak either. Apart from that and a need to have everything set up in good time, it seems to work so far and I might even go for a monthly ticket next time because of the savings, a rare thing in the world of bus travel. If things continue as they are, the era of paper weekly tickets and their red seals might be behind me. Of course, only time will tell if that comes to pass.

Update 2010-08-03: This morning my Blackberry crashed minutes before the bus appeared so a paper ticket was needed; the Opera Mini browser was to blame and reinstallation (bookmarks needed manual restoration, though) was the cure. Otherwise, there have been some frantic moments trying to get the ticket on screen in time but no driver has rejected the electronic item. In summary, the dalliance with mobile ticketing worked well most of the time. From now on, it might be an idea to start closing down applications on the handheld device instead of suspending them in order to avoid problems.

 
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Posted by on July 30, 2010 in Buses, Coaches, Observations, Ticketing

 

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The effects of road works

14 Jun

Arriva seems to have retimed the 130 services to the extent that you find drivers having to stopover at convenient places for longer that is ideal. Then, there’s having to go slower than usual to keep to the advertised timing points, a legal requirement. Seeing this does make you wonder if things have gone from one extreme to the other. There was a time when such considerations were far from being observed with the bus timings suffering as a direct result. Some people must consider that the only road works relating to the Alderley Edge Bypass to be a major upheaval. While there can be no doubt that there’s potential for major disruption, you do have to ask if there has been overcompensation.

The same thing affects the 27 too, it seems. If you want to get from Knutsford to Alderley Park, you have to deal with a much reduced service level. The question arises is whether this is temporary or not. One would hope that it is the former and not the latter but you have to wonder in these times when austerity has been trumpeted by a new government. Who knows?

 
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Posted by on June 14, 2010 in Buses, News, Observations, Timetables

 

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