(24 May 2023, 7:58 pm)Dan wrote The Go North East X1 is taking a beating with congestion at the moment.

The works on the Washington Highway are causing huge disruption after The Galleries - the need to come off at the next junction to go back on again, and resultant traffic.

I was driving between meetings earlier and got caught in traffic for 25 minutes to get between the two slip roads. Something that would normally take less than 25 seconds.


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Wasn't aware of that one, one to avoid. Quite often around there at rush hour mind.

(24 May 2023, 8:07 pm)solsburian wrote Case in point today, I arrived at Hatymarket for the 17:10 X7 home, I usually sit in the seats for the lay down bay Y as queuing is a free for all at stand V for the X7/8/9. A X7 arrives at the same times as a X8, the X7 being the previous 16:40 departure, and a single decker, 1502 - NK12 FLP, which leaves at 17:13 rather toasty. Traffic was backed up from Matthew Bank to Haddricks Mill roundabout, and again from the Gosforth Park/Dobbies/Moorfields roundabout and the Sandy Lane roundabout. By the time it got into Seghill, that service was almost 1 hour behind schedule.

IMHO the problem with the X7/8 (and the 363/364 before it) is that the routes are too convoluted and pass through two major pinch pints (Haddricks Mill and the Sandy Lane roundabouts), with the recent "improvement" schemes doing nowt to help. How to solve it? In the past the seem to work better when they don't interwork with each other, and perhaps being radical, you could divert the X7 along the Coast Road to Silverlink, then up the A19 to the Killingworth turn off and then up the Backworth Lonnen to Seghill, though I doubt that would be popular with the reasoned of Burradon or the new sprawling estates along the A189.

The whole of Sandy Lane is a mess, I really don't understand why they didn't put a bus gate from the Great Lime road, it literally would solve most the issues with buses there. Not to mention it's done nothing, in fact it's made it worse unbelievably.

Haddricks Mill, is a nightmare but to be fair the Coast Road isn't much better as it's a car park from Sandyford all the way through to Corner House on a bad day, used to live in Heaton for a bit and it could take 15 - 20 minutes there aswell.

I saw your bus btw, I really don't understand why it ran as 7601 was 2 minutes behind you with no-one on. Should've dead ran it and got it back on time. Seems like it overtook it at some point aswell, the same happened with the X8's aswell.

Very bad night mind, your bus must be up there with the biggest delay I've ever seen - well it is without any form of accident or weather incident. 58 minutes late takes a beating.