The bus did have hills street as a bus lane but as it was not signalised it was not the safest junction for buses to enter the A167 for the tyne bridge because of the speed of the traffic that hurtles down there.
The only safe time at busy times was when the pedestrian crossing was on green for pedestrians then as soon as amber was showing for cars you had the F1 drivers (normally taxis) taking off the start line to get in pole position
I bet there was many near misses at that junction over the years, it is an inconvenience to cars but bus passenger safety is paramount and it is now safer than ever.
Askew road could have been designed a lot better though to allow all vehicle traffic to turn left on to the bridge using the space currently used up with the most pointless 2 lane cycle path, they could have narrowed that to 1 lane, had 2 lanes for other traffic and 1 lane for buses only, improving safety for all and easing congestion from gateshead town centre