(10 Aug 2021, 10:08 pm)Drifter60 wrote I must agree, the connections needed maintaining, not just buses from Houghton to Chester and Seaham but also areas such as Seaton, Northlea and Dene House Road in Seaham who would be left without a service.
And I think it was realistically unfeasible to not have a bus between Chester and Houghton, you’d be left either changing buses somewhere in Bournmoor between the 4 and a 78, hardly ideal. And again Houghton to Seaham would require a change in Hetton, which adds considerable time on the journey, however at least that would be a interchange point though!
Go North East probably knew the council would want to ensure these connections continued. And it’s a shame that they haven’t promoted the route a bit first before deciding it’s unprofitable, new connections across Houghton and direct links between Seaham and Chester just haven’t been marketed at all. Maybe time to push some of the less high profile routes a bit rather than just “XLINES” or the Angel. Nothing against those services but nice new XLINES buses don’t help the people of Seaham, Seaton and Great Lumley who were facing loosing vital links.
Tbf, having seen the changes around Sunniside and the removal of links between Stanley and the Metrocentre, I'm surprised they haven't pushed changing between the 4 and 78 at some random bus stop.
As you say, at least Hetton is designed as an interchange. Unlike Sunniside, Woodstone Village or Bournmoor.
The thing that really annoys me about the 71, is the instistance of doing the same thing over and over (tweaked a little bit here and there) and somehow expecting that same thing to work.
I assume they expect it to work. I mean, they might expect it to fail completely. But that would just be a bit strange.
I genuinely don't understand why they haven't tried something different.
Whether that be changes to the timetable (iron out headway in Lumley and connections with the train at Seaham, the allocation, the route, allocating it a budget from the Stenning school of copy & paste... Anything at all. Apart from what has have done for the 15 years, when they've shown this bizarre obsession to make it work using the barest minimum of their creative commercial acumen, whilst planning one of their begging bowl trips to County Hall.
(10 Aug 2021, 10:24 pm)Ambassador wrote Has the public extortion of local councils ceased yet…ahem…I mean are the changes public yet?
The 21 is stuck in traffic at the Arnison Centre and they're unable to reach an agreement with DCC.
Once they've battled through the chain of buses following each other, reached County Hall and came away with a collection pot bigger than the Catholic Church has after mass - you can expect an announcement.