I had the misfortune of a pretty rough day on the 21 today and none of it was GNEs fault.
The rush hour 21s out of Newcastle were running 30-45 mins late out of Newcastle and it’s all down to the councils and the road network
Collingwood St and The Bigg Market are undergoing works to improve the flow of what is a pinch point of a junction but it took my 21 about 12 minutes to get from Wilko to High Level, not assisted by cars blocking Grainger St
The A184 was packed towards Gateshead interchange so the buses couldn’t access the bus lane, this added just under 8 minutes
We then got stuck on High St West as traffic from the A184 towards Gateshead Highway blocked the junction.
The above two are no doubt unintended consequences of Gatesheads utterly insane road network.
Low Fell was horrific, although I’d normally be off home at the cannon I was meeting friends in Chester. We crawled along to lyndhurst, at least 15 minutes.
Then we hit…Birtley. Wow. The new cycle lane and footpath improvements have 3 way lights at the moment, combined with the A1 roadworks, it’s a recipe for disaster, af5er 5 mins stuck at Eighton Lodge roundabout we sat in Newcastle Bank for 10 minutes before crawling through Birtley and then hitting yet more roadworks for the cycle lane after Komats. We arrived in Chester just under 40 mins late with a convoy of equally late 21s behind us.
I’m quick to criticise service delivery, but I genuinely don’t know what they can do aside stakeholder bollocking Gateshead Council for their ineptitude. Only going to get worse next year with the Tyne Bridge
RE: Disruptions and driver shortages
Wistfully stuck in the 90s