(06 Jan 2022, 7:49 pm)MurdnunoC wrote But why Blaydon? You have yet to provide a reason why anyone from the West End of Newcastle would want to travel to Blaydon. The only reason I can think of is that YOU want to travel to Blaydon, which is fine, but at least be honest about it rather than disguising it under the premise of wanting to create new links between places where very few people either end of the route wish to travel
While Metrocentre is a ghost of what it is once was, it still provides a number of things which Blaydon does not. So diverting the 6 or the 7 away from the Metrocentre would be commercial suicide for either service. My point about Metrocentre, which I think you misunderstood, is that there is little point in creating new Metrocentre specific services, shoppers specials if you will, like we might have seen in the past as shopping habits have drastically changed over the last decade or so.
On a final note, there were once services which operated between Blaydon and Westerhope (616/617/641/M16/M17). The reason they originally existed was to provide Stella Power Station with a bus service. Once that was demolished in 1990 ridership declined which led to the eventual withdrawal of the route sometime in the early 2000s, if not earlier. So to go back to my opening question: Why Blaydon? What has suddenly changed which would make folk want to go there?
I know there's a lot of joking around with Kingston Park and the Metro Centre lately but one thing that is noticeable is there's a large chunk of the West End without a link to any supermarket at all. Benwell and Elswick in particular don't and nor does a large chunk of West Road without trailing through to Byker for over 30 minutes. I'm not counting West Denton that place is terrible. Yet 5 minutes drive South is the biggest ASDA in the North East and 10 minutes North is the biggest Tesco in the North East.
It's similar around North Kenton, 5 minutes drive from Tesco Kingston Park, no service at all. 5 minutes from ASDA and M&S Gosforth no service at all. Nearest supermarket Morrisons West Denton, 27 minutes on a bus and it's crap.
I agree they don't deserve buses from everywhere but when you can't get the basics right it's no wonder people are driving. Tesco Kingston Park, ASDA Metro Centre and ASDA Gosforth are pretty much inaccessible from most of the Stagecoach network in North / West Newcastle and they're there to serve those areas pretty much.