(14 Jan 2015, 7:43 am)Dan wrote With regards to the bus lane and the services in and out of Heworth using it:
Service 4 is fully commercially operated, and this is the service seeing an increase in frequency on evenings and Sundays. Between Heworth and Concord, after 19:23, services 82/82A are also commercially operated. These journeys will be withdrawn and replaced by the increased frequency of service 4, from the first week in February. As I have said before, the resources saved from cutting services 82/82A on an evening/Sunday go into the revised 4 service. The Concord - Birtley section of the route is secured by Nexus, and this section remains unchanged on evenings/Sundays.
As service 29A is not commercially operated, this service was not subject to Go North East's changes, and remains unchanged (albeit re-numbered to coincide with the new 35/36 service route numbers). The buses, in my experience, run empty, but this is clearly how Nexus wishes to use public money. I think there will be some logic behind it, however. The weekday service of Nexus-secured 558 terminates at Heworth, but on Sundays, the service is curtailed at Cotswold Estate (just after Boldon ASDA). The resource which would have been needed to continue the 558 to Heworth (which would have otherwise been saved) has continued to be pumped into the half-hourly 29A service, despite the fact that there's no great need for it. At least that tax-payer funded bus lane will be getting used, eh?
I agree the only main part used of the route on the current 29A is Sunderland - Town end Farm, funding should be used else where but maybe terminating one of the 29A's at Boldon Asda, so only 1 an hour go to Heworth, means some funding can go else where?