(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.

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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)?

Sunderland Road Bus Link, A694 near Swalwell Roundabout, Great North Road/Blue House Roundabout, Team Valley Maingate roundabout, Wardley to Heworth off the top of my head have improved the journey experience.

However, because of the limited scope of bus lanes here and the UK in general, they've probably only prevented frequency reductions, rather than generate new services as the savings are small compared to the time needed to invest elsewhere. 

The political will for the number of bus lanes at the scale needed to have a tangible impact just isn't there.