(15 May 2020, 11:49 am)Andreos1 wrote I think you make some good points there and I agree about the 4 and X1, but if you're coming from Teal Farm and heading to Newcastle for a night out or meal, are you really going to hang around at the galleries waiting for connections there and back? Depending on your timings, you could be waiting the best part of a 30mins, just to get a bus to Newcastle. Dread to think what it would be like coming back, but guessing it could be the best part of an hour hanging around once they're off the X1. 
There's 90mins of an evening hanging around, plus travel time. 

At the Birtley end, you have problems during the day with punters on the new estate unable to get a bus down to Durham Road. They can get a bus up, but again, there's no incentive for them to use public transport - particularly if they can only use it in one direction. 
Similarly, if you're in Barley Mow, you have a regular bus during the day, but might have to walk to/from Portobello Road on a night to get anywhere. 

There's three barriers that I can think of straight away, that once removed or changed - could have a positive impact. 
Instead, they're left as they are. Yet people wonder why the buses need subsidies and why numbers are low.

The Teal Farm connection is correct heading towards Newcastle. You would miss the X1 by around 4 or 5mins. The return is better. If you get the X1 on the hour from Newcastle, there's only a 5mins wait for the 86 returning to Teal Farm. Teal Farm is the oddity of GNE in Washington as it's about the only place not served during the day. This is another part of the system where integrated ticketing would benefit passengers - you'd have to buy a single on the 37 and then buy a Purple day ticket or buy a Day Rover.

The Birtley end, I agree with. The problem is partly down to the layout of Birtley, there's nowhere to turn the bus round unless you moved the terminus to Mount Pleasant. However, then you run into another problem where you'd be turning the bus up Harris Bank which is a nasty enough road to come down before they put the traffic management in.

The main problem is that an increase in frequency may be beneficial in the long term to increaae passenger numbers, but in the short term they'd be unsustainable to do unless subsidised which is unlikely. So we're in a vicious circle which doesn't benefit anyone and is hard to break out of.

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