(21 May 2022, 11:44 pm)Robbie64 wrote Can anyone make any sense out of what proposals GNE have for the 84/85 in Washington:I read it as 84 & 85 will be circular services going opposite ways around the same loop, including the double run to Brady Square.
Does this mean that the 84 will operate in one direction from Concord back to Concord via The Galleries with the 85 doing the entire route in reverse? A bit like the old 177/178 for those old enough to remember the old Town service that operated in the 1970s and 1980s (one went down Spout Lane through Barmston then to The Galleries then back to Concord via Oxclose and Blackfell while the other bus went Concord-Blackfell-Oxclose-Galleries-Barmston-Spout Lane - Concord.
My local bus is the 84 and I use it two or three times a week to get to The Galleries. This service keeps getting extended (last time it was to serve both Barmston village centre and the bottom of Barmston after the 83 was axed) and now GNE are proposing to extend it to Brady Squre on the way to The Galleries. At this rate the bus is going to be taking close on 30 minutes to get from Concord to The Galleries (I get on the bus one stop further along the road from Concord). I've lived where I live now for 19 years and this service (under its various numbers of W2, W2A, M2, 82 and now 84) has taken longer and longer to get from Concord to The Galleries. It used to be a 17 minute journey during the day back in 2003, it's now effectively been almost doubled in time taken to get to The Galleries.
Sadly, this service has just never taken off. Every time I see it going through Washington Village it's close to empty. It's a service that has been, in part, pieced together by taking parts of the 84 and 85 bus routes, the parts of the routes that saw fewer passengers get on / off the bus. It's unbelievable to think that Washington Village could be left with no bus service at all. That was a part of the route that the 84 used to cover until last year until the part of the route in Barmston was extended after the 83 was axed. Surely GNE should have seen last year that this service route was a non-starter.
Ayton seems to be the big loser here -once it had a 10 minute frequency local service plus the 50, as proposed it will just have the 50.