(22 Jul 2020, 10:09 pm)Storx wrote It's more to the point is there any point moving the buses from CLS to Harlow Green or wherever. No-one uses the 25 now as it is for Low Fell to Newcastle, they all use the 21 so I can't imagine it being the end of the world if it didn't exist. The only reason imo they changed things around was so they could decrease the Eastern side of the 1 from every 15 minutes to 20 minutes and the 25 was the only bus route they could merge it into without running a short from Newcastle to Wrekenton only.
One thing that a lot of people have missed here is there might not actually be that much demand from the Harlow Estate to Newcastle and Gateshead . The Western side of the estate are likely to walk to Durham road where it's every 7 minutes instead of every 30 minutes. The North Eastern side are going to walk to Easedale Gardens where the Q1/Q2 are every 15 minutes. It only really leaves the South East side and even then some will probably be tempted to walk the 10 minutes to Durham Road or 7 minutes to Easedale. Least if you sent the loop or something your creating new links to other places like Team Valley or Heworth and your creating a new link between Wrekenton and Team Valley where people from the X1 or 56 could change easily.
The fact there's a duplicate 925 currently for the 25 pretty much sums up where the 25 should be going.
I agree, I don't think there is that much demand to/from Harlow Green.
It's a useful location to get the bus pointing in the right direction again, it allows for the main drag through Low Fell to be covered and the length of time it takes to get there from the town, means you can use a pretty low PVR and associated resource.
Send something through Birtley and all of a sudden you're looking to increase the resources cost, are at the whim of the many traffic lights and hoping that nowt happens on the A1 - for not much in the way of financial return, as the demand to/from the Gateshead or Newcastle isn't always there imo.
I'd completely forgotten about the Tyne Rider Metrobuses mentioned above - a low cost entry in to the Durham Road bus war, which used Harlow Green as a terminus for probably the reasons I mentioned previously.
As I said previously though, I don't think Harlow Green is the place to spin the bus round. Ditto Wrekenton. They might be convenient for operators, but they're both intermediate stops imo, which won't attract the through passengers, which help supplement the short trips.