(05 Feb 2016, 10:31 pm)BusLoverMum wrote Having no choice but to trundle through Birtley at 20mph would reduce reliability. Heck, you already have 10 buses an hour to Newcastle via Durham Road - and the 21 doesn't take much longer than the X12. I'd understand the want for more express buses if the time difference was 10-15 minutes, but it's not. It's half that.
Outside of peak traffic at a crawl, not a single bus adheres to 20mph through Birtley.
At peak the X12 is a lot quicker purely because of heavy loadings through Durham Rd. The 7.30 X12 takes me about 15 mins to Gateshead. Normally the 21 is at least 30 minutes. X12 is 60p cheaper too.
Ironically most X21s seem to happily trundle through Birtley though that may change once western bypass works are complete.
I don't think Low Fell necessarily needs faster links to Durham. It's an odd one, I can on,y see it as a shot at Arriva/money to be made from low fell, which I guess makes commercial sense