(19 Dec 2025, 9:42 pm)stagecoachbusdepot wrote I definitely haven't reaffirmed your point.
It isn't snobbery toward public transport. It is reality based on decades of evidence of decline despite investment in bus priority measures and gimmicks (indeed, anything other than actual services really). The fact that investment in infrastructure has occurred alongside a terminal decline in service provision does not support the the notion that investing in more solid white lines is going to drive an improvement in the bus network. There is a world of difference to road infrastructure where the benefit is (generally) plain for everyone to see and experience - just dismissing a different view to your own as snobbery is not how to have a sensible debate.
I don't know anything about the Northumberland Line but if that has been about opening up new links and providing actual services it is, again, like apples and pears to bus lanes. If your argument was that investing in actual better (more frequent, direct, choice etc) routes then there would be a fairer analogy and I doubt many would argue.
Are there any in the region that have led to a demonstrable increase in overall quality of the network (e.g. increased ridership driving increased frequency, or new connections being introduced along these corridors)?
I don't know whether you live in an urban area, but from a sub urban area lack of bus priority is a serious problem as journeys are unbearably slow to the stage it's borderline unusable unless you have nothing better to do.
There has been very little investment in bus lanes etc in the North East, and the vast majority of it, is a complete waste of money in the wrong place because it'd cause too much controversy to do it where it should be. The nonsense planned in Sunderland around Hastings Hill - is a prime example of that.
Places like the Coast Road near Corner House, Gosforth High Street, West Road, Chester Road, Stamfordham Road, around the Metrocentre etc being the sort of places I'm talking about here.
Google Brighton if you want to see somewhere which actually prioritises bus transport and there's examples where there's been big growth.