(21 Feb 2022, 11:11 am)streetdeckfan wrote Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand how people can complain about the hub and spoke model used by the likes of GNE and having to change buses, but then go on about how great it was having to change at Gateshead to the Metro to get to Newcastle.
Time differences, the Metro is generally a faster option and it goes right in the centre where you want to be. The time it would take to walk from say M&S with all your shopping down to Market Street then trundling across to Gateshead would be negligible to going down an escalator catching a 5 minute Metro service at Gateshead then going up 2 other escalators plus Gateshead is a much nicer waiting environment and your indoors for the whole journey.
It's the same with the likes of the Regent Centre if you caught a bus to there and the Metro's connected it would be quicker than trundling on a bus stuck in traffic through Gosforth. At the same time if you removed half the buses out of Newcastle you could pedestrianise more zones and make it a more pleasant shopping experience so it's a win/win.
Compare that to bus hub and spoke in say Consett. If you want to travel from Delves Lane you have to sit on a seriously infrequent bus service to Consett bus station travelling in the outright wrong direction to then change onto another slow bus which trundles along taking 50 minutes. With the changes added on your talking a 1 hour 30 minute bus time for a journey that's 33 mins in a car.
Cycle -> Metro, Cycle -> Trains, Bus -> Metro, Bus -> Trains works.
Bus -> Bus doesn't work.
The first two are just an outright foreign idea in the UK compared to a lot of EU countries.