Gateshead Central Taxis
Gateshead Central Taxis
(05 Nov 2020, 9:22 pm)Storx I'm sorry but to say that the West End isn't a Monopoly because there's a few express services stopping at a few bus stops and a 2 hourly service running to Hexham via Matfen and small villages is really scraping the barrel not trying to be nasty. West Road, Fenham and Elswick are dominated by Stagecoach in an area which is high car usage, very high population density and there's no alternative at all ie the Metro in other areas. It's the place that everyone wants but no-one would dare go there. Gosforth / Kingston Park are northern Newcastle not the West End.
I never said South Shields etc are 'bad' it's just their weakest areas in terms of both investment and routes. South Shields and Hartlepool's depots have generally been getting edged towards closure for years now such as the E services (the profitable routes) being moved to Sunderland with the X63 and Hartlepool is pretty much an outstation to Stockton nowadays. Percy Main depot has by far the most services which are subsidised one way or another, hasn't had a new bus (which they still have) since 2013 and has had a cut to every service within the last year (1, 309, 310 cut from every 15 mins to 20 mins), (11, 19 no Evening / Sunday services), (40/41, 42 butchered in half or half the route scrapped) and also has the oldest fleet out of all the GNE depots with nothing planned to change that by the sounds of it neither. If that's what competition brings then I'd prefer not to have it.
(05 Nov 2020, 9:22 pm)Storx I'm sorry but to say that the West End isn't a Monopoly because there's a few express services stopping at a few bus stops and a 2 hourly service running to Hexham via Matfen and small villages is really scraping the barrel not trying to be nasty. West Road, Fenham and Elswick are dominated by Stagecoach in an area which is high car usage, very high population density and there's no alternative at all ie the Metro in other areas. It's the place that everyone wants but no-one would dare go there. Gosforth / Kingston Park are northern Newcastle not the West End.
I never said South Shields etc are 'bad' it's just their weakest areas in terms of both investment and routes. South Shields and Hartlepool's depots have generally been getting edged towards closure for years now such as the E services (the profitable routes) being moved to Sunderland with the X63 and Hartlepool is pretty much an outstation to Stockton nowadays. Percy Main depot has by far the most services which are subsidised one way or another, hasn't had a new bus (which they still have) since 2013 and has had a cut to every service within the last year (1, 309, 310 cut from every 15 mins to 20 mins), (11, 19 no Evening / Sunday services), (40/41, 42 butchered in half or half the route scrapped) and also has the oldest fleet out of all the GNE depots with nothing planned to change that by the sounds of it neither. If that's what competition brings then I'd prefer not to have it.