(15 Jan 2025, 12:02 am)stagecoachbusdepot wrote I think this is literally the only time I have encountered anyone with a positive take on the shitshow that is the road network around Gateshead and the Tyne Bridge.  Given the entrenched and worsening failures of the operator to run anything resembling a reliable service all we have is the worst of both worlds.  A crap road system with reduced capacity creating queues to get into queues to queue to get back to almost where you started for the 75% sat in their car to create lovely priority measures for the 5% lucky enough to be on a service thats turned up while the other 20% wallow at some godforsaken bus stop watching an app lie to them.  As ever, the only real attempts to make the bus more attractive rely on making it worse to use the car, not actually making it better or easier to use the bus.

It's awful for those travelling by private vehicle, absolutely. The tailbacks with the Tyne Bridge works have been bad enough, but the Gateshead Flyover has compounded the issue further. However, my praise was specifically in relation to the bus priority, which (most of the time) absolutely works.

We just need a reliable bus service to go with it, and then we're doing what we should have been doing all along - promoting public transport as the best option.

(15 Jan 2025, 9:22 am)PH - BQA wrote Given the amount of Washington Solos on big bus routes recently, GNE would need to be sending out half hourly updates if they were to follow Stagecoach’s example there. However, as was disclosed in the Great Strike of 2023, GNE staff are nowhere near as productive as their Stagecoach counterparts, so that frequency of update would be impossible.

You raise a good point. I wonder where those posters that were arguing that GNE drivers were unproductive are now hiding? It doesn't seem very productive that the company can't provide them with a bus to drive.