(30 Aug 2021, 1:38 pm)Drifter60 wrote I have to agree that buses not using the same terminus is annoying. It’s not about the walk it’s about the fact it takes extra time and if connections are tight it’s the difference between making or missing your journey and adding god knows how long to travel, not so bad when it’s a leisure trip as such, but for commuting far from ideal. Park Lane is badly designed and why you certainly used to (don’t know if still happens, never been to PL in 18 months!) have people using Stand K as cross over to get to Stands N-T and potentially nearly getting wiped out by a bus in the process. However it does show that you can’t please everyone, because it actually annoyed me when buses don’t get straight to the interchange, the 61 now and the X6 used to, that loop of the city centre adds what I see as unnecessary time if I’m trying to make another connection to bus/metro.They could I suppose offer a extension to South Shields and advertise the low fares. Could possibly use the Drifter so like every 24 mins it extends to South Sheilds that way. They could trial it especially between May-Sept.
I’ll touch a little bit on bus vs car debate, a group of friends 4 of us were travelling to South Shields on a Sunday, 2 from Peterlee, 2 from Seaham. So it was two buses, an Arriva 22 or the GNE 60 to Sunderland and then we all had to walk across Fawcett Street for the Stagecoach E1. All this involved trying to coordinate timings, walk across Sunderland, buy two day (or return) tickets - day rovers and network one not valid for us coming from County Durham. We also misssed an E1 because it departed four minutes after the 60 arrived in. The Arriva 22 also finishes about 6/7 on a Sunday too so timings were tight for the return leg. To be honest, whole thing was faff. Next trip we decided to get pay my mates dad to drop off and pick up later. Gave him a fiver each, cheaper and more convenient. No worries about missing last buses for a Sunday evening, no buying two day tickets because cross operator travel tickets are practically non existing, no walking between bus connections and then waiting around because you’ve just missed a departure. I suppose if GNE did offer a service from Park Lane along the coast though Roker, Seaburn, Whitburn, South Shields, perhaps that would make it more appealing, use a GNE ticket (these days the 55 goes to Peterlee on Sundays, it didn’t at the time) and connecting in the same place you alight works so much better.
RE: Go North East: Service Suggestions v2