News Snippets
Derbyshire County Council is proposing the abolition of their subsidised bus network like what has happened in Cumbria. This is planned for October 2017 and there is a consultation ongoing until 2016-04-24. It sounds short-sighted and I already have made my views known. It helps also that this is a survey that is easy to complete.
Reading about Canadian explorations raised hopes more for my not needing a car than those south of its border with the U.S.A. It still is a big country, so service frequencies are not like we know in the U.K. Even so, I am collecting up some websites that help with such journey planning in case they help. Again, many are bus and train companies, but there are other helpful portals on the list too.
Banff Airporter
Barrie Transit
BC Transit
Brampton Transit
Brewster Travel
Burlington Transit
Coach Canada
DRL
Durham Region Transit
Exo
GOTransit
Grand River Transit
Greyhound
Guelph Transit
HSR
Keewatin Railway Company
Marine Atlantic
Maritime Bus
Metrobus
Metrolinx
Milton Transit
MiWay
Niagara Falls Transit
Newfoundland & Labrador Local Transportation
Oakville Transit
OC Transpo
Ontario Northland
Orangeville Transit
Orléans Express
Peterborough Transit
Red Arrow
St. Catherine’s Transit Commission
Toronto Transit Commission
TransLink
Triplinx
Union Pearson Express
VIA Rail
York Region Transit
The start of 2016 is set to see these bus service changes in Cheshire:
2016-01-20
Service 9/9A (Routemaster Buses)
Service reverts to the previous route.
2016-01-16
Service 8: (Routemaster Buses) Crewe – Wistaston
Commercial service withdrawn.
2016-01-11
Service 20 (Routemaster Buses) Crewe – Ruskin Road – Kingsway – Beech Drive
Route and timetable revised.
2016-01-04
Service 8 (Routemaster Buses) Crewe – Wistaston
New Monday to Saturday commercial service to replace withdrawn Arriva service 8.
Service 9, 9A (Routemaster Buses)
Timetable and route revised to link with new Routemaster 8 service.
Service C84 (Routemaster Buses) Chester – Crewe
New commercial service part replacing withdrawn Arriva 84 journeys to/from Chester.
2016-01-03
Manchester Bridge, Crewe roadworks from 3 January to 6 April. D&G service 8, 8A will run to a revised timetable and will operate in a clockwise direction around the Sydney and Elm Drive estates.
2016-01-02
Service 8 (Arriva) Crewe – Beech Drive – Crewe
Service withdrawn
Service 8 (D&G Bus) Crewe – Beech Drive – Crewe
New Monday to Friday commercial service to part replace withdrawn Arriva service 8.
It does appear that rail services in the north of England are facing a transformation that begins from next April when Arriva takes on the Northern franchise and First continues with Transpennine Express without the involvement of Keolis. Only time will tell how it all goes but here are some links in the meantime:
Massive boost to rail services brings Northern Powerhouse to life
Transforming TransPennine Express
FirstGroup plc welcomes award of TransPennine Express rail franchise
Some of the above take the form of press releases while others provide further information. There may be time yet for me to provide some commentary of my own to follow the above, but I hope that these will be useful for now.
From 2015-12-19 the following Cheshire bus services will be withdrawn:
RR3 Disley – Macclesfield
X20 Middlewich – Cheshire Oaks
X81 Winsford – Hanley
From 2015-12-21, the following Cheshire bus service changes will come into place:
27X Macclesfield – Knutsford: service withdrawn, registration cancelled.
36 Crewe – Haslington – Sandbach: service now only operates during school term time. 12:25 from Crewe withdrawn. 11:55 from Sandbach withdrawn.
39 Macclesfield – Congleton: service number changed from 39 to 87 to avoid number clash on network. New 07:00 journey from Congleton added. 18:00 journey from Congleton withdrawn. 12:00 journey withdrawn and 13:00 journey added.
44 Crewe – Nantwich: service now only operates during school term time.
38 Crewe – Congleton – Macclesfield: most of the extra commercial journeys introduced on 2015-08-31 have been withdrawn.
88 Knutsford – Wilmslow – Altrincham: timetable revised with some journeys added or extended.
130 Macclesfield – Manchester: timetable revised and runs on Sundays only.
From next Sunday, Arriva will be altering some services around Crewe, Northwich and Winsford. Service 85 from Winsford to Winsford Industrial Estate is to be withdrawn with some Monday to Friday morning and afternoon journeys on service 29 from Northwich to Over St. John’s getting re-numbered 29A and re-routed to replace it. The Saturday service frequency on route 29 is changed to be hourly. Saturday timetables also are revised for service 6 between Crewe and Brookhouse and service 8 between Crewe and Wistaston Green. Otherwise, service 84 between Crewe and Chester will have its route revised in Chester to start and finish at Chester Railway Station with some timetable revisions too.
These are some changes to bus services in Greater Manchester:
Service 43A
High Park to Carr Lane
Replaced by service 43 for evening and Sunday journeys with the Russell Road section of route no longer being served.
Service 46
Russell Road to Carr Lane
Service is re-routed from Carr Lane to operate via Duke Street and Shakespeare Street (omitting Cemetery Road), before going via Lord Street, London Street, Sussex Road, Norwood Avenue (omitting Hoghton Street, Manchester Road, Hawkshead Street and Tithebarn Road). Journeys in the opposite direction reverse this route.
Services 43 and 46 will each revert to a 30 minute frequency.
Service 44
Crossens to Formby
Evening and Sunday service will be increased to operate every 30 minutes between Crossens and Formby but will omit Walnut Street in both directions.
Telford & Wrekin council are embarking on a public consultation regarding the bus services that they support in their area. Apparently, it is only 2% of the total provision and costing around £1.7m per annum. Still, you do wonder if there are larger items of expenditure to interrogate and this is the story with much bus service funding in the U.K. Also, the consultation page on their website was not working when I looked.
In June, First Potteries announced that they were consolidating their operations in the Stoke-on-Trent area to just one depot at Adderley Green. The one at Newcastle is to close and a widespread network overhaul is to come. There is a summary on the website dating from July along with a service by service change summary. A few existing services are being withdrawn while others see route changes and there are frequency improvements. There is one new route and another two being introduced on trial following feedback from local communities. Let’s hope that things remain steady after all this change that comes not so long after a previous attempt to reinvigorate the First Potteries bus network.
Spring Bank Holiday bus service level in Cheshire is that of a Sunday.