(03 Sep 2023, 10:10 pm)Storx wrote Bridges shuts earlier, it's quite a detour through some pretty unpleasant areas in an evening when arguably you want to be there.

Leeds is a really bad example btw, quite a lot of buses don't serve the thing at all and do the Leeds loop instead. Leeds is actually one of the better examples of buses serving more areas. The only buses which serve the bus station mainly come from the West, so already serve the city on the way. Not to mention there's quite a lot of cross city links.

https://bustimes.org/services/163-castleford-leeds#map - See the 163 for an example.
https://bustimes.org/services/x98-sky-cl...eeds-2#map - or X98 from Wetherby.

Like, if stuff like the E1/E2/E6/56 served the bus station there that's fair play as they already serve the city but stuff like the 60 etc would be better doing a loop still imo. Maybe serving a stop nearby so people can still change there if needed, it's the best of both worlds like Leeds.

See I don’t know, I actually avoid the 61 when travelling from the Top of Seaham into Sunderland, something I used to do for a few years in two previous jobs, because of the city centre loop, it took too long to get to the interchange. I was connecting to the metro in one case and another bus in the other, so I always opted for the 60,22,23 because they felt much more direct. When the 61 became the 9 it was better because it at least when to the interchange first, most got off there though in my experience. Not many travelled through to alight at Fawcett Street, anyone still on the bus went beyond the city centre. 

People go on about buses being ‘white elephants’, ‘not in the right places etc’ but there still very well used, if they weren’t Go North East wouldn’t send the vast majority of buses into the interchange. I always preferred a bus station because you knew exactly what stand to wait at and buses pulled in, rather than busy City Centre stops where there’s loads of buses passing.