(22 Jul 2021, 8:54 pm)Andreos1 wrote Plenty of people commute along the Coast Road between various points of North Tyneside.
This is all in addition to the ANE and GNE, the Metro and to an extent SNE.
All that competition and still there's traffic jams, cries for bus priority measures, road improvements etc.
In addition to that, you've got the A19 corridor teaming with business parks, manufacturing sites and new housing.
Despite that, money is spent on improving the road network or subsidising a bus between two desolate town centres and the Tyne Tunnel.
There's the A189 (which obviously connects directly/indirectly with both the A19 and Coast Road), with new housing at various points along it and business parks at various stages of it.
Despite that, it's more or less impossible to get to/from many of them using public transport.
Sticking with the same old route network isn't working.
Whacking a collapsible bench on a rear facing seat isn't working.
I'm not sure 'desirable' branding is doing anything other than creating identikit fleets up and down the country.
Someone needs to find out where the people are coming from, where they're going to and work out what will encourage them to make the modal shift.
It might be a quicker service, it may be variations to the network or it might mean new services that allow people to travel easily and quickly between places like (the sorts of journeys that can be a bit of a nightmare as it stands, but shouldn't be) Marden and Quorum, Annitsford and Cobalt, New York and Tyne Tunnel Trading Estate or Howdon and the AMP.
Not just Town Centre to City Centre, in some sort of multi-coloured convoy.
Yeah agreed with that if I had to be honest, the services in parts of Whitley are a disgrace and it's no wonder bus usage is high. Monkseaton, Marden and Red House Farm must have some of the worst services in the North East especially the Southern Parts of Monkseaton which has the 57/57A and that's pretty much your lot, similar with Red House Farm which has the hourly 51 and that's your lot it's no wonder car usage is through the roof.
That's why I don't see the point in more expresses to add to the other 7 buses doing the same route through Whitley to Newcastle/Blyth (308 / 309) or the 5 buses between Whitley and Tynemouth doing pretty much the same route (1 / 306).
It's crazy how difficult it is to get to Silverlink, Tynemouth / Shields Morrison's, Monkseaton Sainsbury's and Norham Road Tesco from pretty much everywhere in East North Tyneside, argubly places where people need to get to if they want to shop. Sadly services which used to exist until not too long ago with the 75/76/85/86 before the 310/311 came along which are no better than the services they replaced (or in the case of the 311 cart around fresh air).