(04 Nov 2021, 1:26 pm)ne14ne1 wrote [ -> ]If the city has been told it needs to address it’s illegal levels of pollution as quickly as possible, and therefore encourage sustainable travel options, it would be ridiculous to meanwhile continue offer free parking which acts as a magnet drawing cars into the city centre.
Metro offering free parking at their Park & Ride sites is a good move to help regain patronage.
Many people can’t afford cars and Newcastle has a lower than average car ownership. It’s rather unfair free parking has been offered for so long but not free (or at least cheaper) public transport.
https://twitter.com/newcastlecc/status/1...00134?s=21
Personally I'd rather see a vibrant city centre with people coming in because of the free parking who would have went elsewhere. There's plenty free options around, people wanting to drive will go elsewhere instead some no doubt further away through Newcastle to get to the point.
The biggest problem up here is the fact the councils seem to have decided that everyone going to Newcastle are and MUST BE going to Newcastle when reality most are just travelling through to other places with no form of public transport at all. Newcastle has no route of travelling East / West without going through the centre and there's no route of travelling North / South either because of lack of bridges.
Sunderland get a lot of slack up here but the new Spire Bridge is fantastic and if the councils we're serious about reducing pollution then they should be looking at the Friar Goose Crossing and the bridge to West of Newcastle removing the need for most of the traffic to ever travel through the centre in the first place. It's expensive, but sometimes you need to spend to fix things.
It looks like the DfT have approved funding to repair/restore the Tyne Bridge.
Work will also be done to the Central Motorway during the same timeframe.
(08 Jul 2022, 2:55 pm)Andreos1 wrote [ -> ]https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-62093142
Interesting developments in Newcastle. Staff to be provided with taxis home
Interesting read, of course people could say this may be more expensive than buses, but depends very much on take up ..
(08 Jul 2022, 3:07 pm)54APhotography wrote [ -> ]Interesting read, of course people could say this may be more expensive than buses, but depends very much on take up ..
Well, if you're finishing your shift around or after midnight, you're stuffed for catching the bus, anyhow.
(08 Jul 2022, 10:07 pm)BusLoverMum wrote [ -> ]Well, if you're finishing your shift around or after midnight, you're stuffed for catching the bus, anyhow.
Agree absolutely, the critics will of course see a council funded taxi fare as excessive and use a bus fare as a comparison, even if there isn't a bus at that time ?♂️
(08 Jul 2022, 10:07 pm)BusLoverMum wrote [ -> ]Well, if you're finishing your shift around or after midnight, you're stuffed for catching the bus, anyhow.
Half expecting the operators to get their begging bowls out and ask why they're not involved in this scheme
(09 Jul 2022, 8:29 am)Andreos1 wrote [ -> ]Half expecting the operators to get their begging bowls out and ask why they're not involved in this scheme
Yes, a load of extra late turns will do wonders for driver retention in the North East....
(09 Jul 2022, 8:50 am)DeltaMan wrote [ -> ]Yes, a load of extra late turns will do wonders for driver retention in the North East....
Just get a load of new recruits with even poorer terms than the more experienced drivers and it will be sorted.
That seems to be the way forward with these things.
(09 Jul 2022, 9:18 am)Andreos1 wrote [ -> ]Just get a load of new recruits with even poorer terms than the more experienced drivers and it will be sorted.
That seems to be the way forward with these things.
Most operators pay a late bonus if duties finish after 2100. There is literally only one reason for that.
(08 Jul 2022, 3:07 pm)54APhotography wrote [ -> ]Interesting read, of course people could say this may be more expensive than buses, but depends very much on take up ..
Not sure it would it's not the council paying for anything it's for the bars to pay for it as a terms of their licence. It'll never happen anyway as NCC don't exactly have a good track record of actually enforcing anything night time related.
Also buses wouldn't fix anything as the people would still have to walk to a bus stop etc which kind of defeats the point of it. I'm assuming they use taxis anyway unless they walk home which they'd continue doing anyway no doubt. I couldn't think of anything worse than going into Haymarket beyond 12pm it's bad enough after 8pm as it is when M&S closes.
(09 Jul 2022, 8:50 am)DeltaMan wrote [ -> ]Yes, a load of extra late turns will do wonders for driver retention in the North East....
Not as GNE as they are cutting 20 plus buses out every evening with the service cuts from the 24th (I haven't added them all up yet but it's over 20)