(06 Sep 2019, 5:59 pm)streetdeckfan wrote

But the thing is if she is using the bus to commute to work every day, there is no way she would be buying a return ticket every day. It would be more cost effective to buy a weekly ticket as Martijn said. Then again, assuming a clean run, it'd probably cost her about £1.20 in petrol/diesel for her return journey, there is no way a bus could compete with that... or could it?

What people fail to take into account is by the time you add in all the extra expenses of running a car like buying/leasing the car, maintenance, insurance, the car does actually become quite expensive.

If for example we lease a base Vauxhall Corsa with maintenance included, that's probably going to cost around £160 a month, plus insurance that's taking it to about £200 a month just to have the car.

Then the price of the fuel for her journey on top of that would take it to about £225 a month.

If we then look at the price of a 2 Zone Network One pass, which is what she would need, that is only £86.50 for a 4 week ticket.

Less than half the cost per month for her journey, and that's assuming she only uses her car for commuting.

With a car, the more you travel, the more fuel you use, so the more it costs. With a bus pass, you can use it as much as you like and it costs the same

Appreciate we are going off topic slightly, but isn't time - money too?

Depending where she lives in Wallsend (regardless of the start times she could have), we are talking 2 or 3 buses and potentially a metro.

(06 Sep 2019, 6:31 pm)Arcticrossy92 wrote

The City Centre is a bit of a mess, you can argue its down to cuts, the council, lack of investment, Brexit, but the fact of the matter is over the past 10 years the City has seen a lot of changes to road layouts, a lot of businesses leave, and vain attempts at small investment in certain places.

The Road changes across the city have created more problems, than solved. John Dobson street is a complete joke, the high level bridge junction has been made worse! Somehow?

 A bridge should of been put in years ago between the tunnels and the main bridges across the tyne. This would of been a step in the right direction of keeping traffic away from the city & the coast road.

A Park & Ride system should of been set up to prevent cars entering the city, the council just can't be arsed to do anything that involves invoice management or any admin, which can be seen in the overall cleanliness of the City.

Closing Blackett street on a weekend, as much as I can see what is trying to be done, looks awful. The place looks like a chav ridden haven with tacky fairground rides and cheap furniture. It does not scream of a City Centre Location, and if I was a tourist to the city would be slightly confused as to what the hell was going on.

There are plenty things that can be done, that can generate money as well as solving the problem. Charging for buses/taxis etc is just a quick cash grab & solves nothing. If they do strip the tyne bridge down to one lane each way, they are essentially creating more standstill pollution, the mind boggles.

I was chatting with Mrs Constantopolous a few weeks back about using the river more.

Without trying to fall in to the trap of bringing London in to the equation, the river is used quite well down there.

A network of river boats travelling between key points surely will have some impact?

(06 Sep 2019, 9:28 pm)Storx wrote

There's already 4 park and rides to the north of Newcastle and they are carry fresh air most the day (Regent Centre / Great Park / Four Lane Ends / Northumberland Park) you can't blame Newcastle City Council for that and they can be blamed for a lot of things.

There's a common theme around here lately and a few people have basically done it on here where everyone seems to assume that everyone is going to/from Newcastle and that's your problem. They aren't.

The fact the traffic jams at rush runs from the Coast Road / Gosforth / Cowgate towards the Tyne Bridge suggest this isn't where people are coming from/going too. Infact most people are more likely travelling from Quorum / Cobalt / Regent Centre / The Ministry to Gateshead and beyond try doing those routes using buses especially Quorum / Cobalt and then you'll see why people aren't using them.

https://road.cc/content/news/175356-map-...ghbourhood (Click link on there can't post direct link) - The focus should be on the areas on the map which are orange / red but they're not. The bus services on the coast particular are shockingly bad in areas and you have no choice to use a car. North Whitley Bay / Marsden in particular similar story in most of washington people can't be bothered to use the local buses to connect to another bus to get to places and it's no surprise they're your high car areas.

You can put as many bike lanes through Gateshead / Gosforth but if they don't go where people want then what's the point and no-one is going to be biking from Whitley Bay / South Gateshead. Surely the point should be to put the bike lanes towards a metro station / bus station with some form of secure bike rack in place where you can change to go to your work.

I get the point you're making about the traffic jams and agree that something needs doing in those areas.

However the council themselves state that within the city centre, there are 4 areas that fall foul of emissions targets and that is where they have installed facilities to monitor emissions.

Monitoring station locations:

• St. Mary’s Place (Automatic Urban Network monitors PM2.5, PM10, NO2, benzene and polyarormatic hydrocarbons (e.g. flourene and pyrene)

• Percy Street (monitors NO2)

• Jesmond Road (monitors NO2 and PM10)

• Pilgrim Street, off Swan House roundabout (monitors NO2)

More than happy for someone to point out if I'm in the wrong, but aren't each of those locations key sections of our bus network?

I'm not saying buses are the root of the problem, but if cars arent the dominant mode of transport in the majority of those areas, then why should car drivers be penalised elsewhere - such as the Tyne Bridge?