Metro disruption

[Liberator9]

When the Metro extension is built and being built where will all the buses be routed along corporation street? For example the 37 as I think the Metro is going to be more trouble than its worth. Its going to affect the buses badly and also the time its going to take just to get to New Street, well forget the airport in the next 50 years!

[Tony]

see about the 3 previous posts on this subject and the Connected City website

http://www.connectedcity.org.uk/

[Stu]

To sum things up, from 22nd July, services that terminate on Corporation Street will no longer do so, stopping at the new interchanges.

The new interchanges will see services that serve similar areas terminating in the same area, and each interchange will be located around the city centre area. To get from one interchange to another will need a short walk, no more than 10 minutes apart.

Buses will be better off, as they won't all be 'looping' around the city centre as they do now, hence why many services will also have timetable alterations, and any service cuts are simply as a result of less time taken to complete the route as the route itself will be shorter.

[D10]

I really can't see how many passengers will see the benefit of all this if their bus used to serve Corporation Street or Upper Bull Street. Now they will be further from the City Centre shops, many workplaces and New Street Station. I wouldn't think that on a cold dark night some of these new stops will seem much of an advantage over the old stops.

All in all I am having trouble seeing this as an improvement for bus users, sorry!

[Liberator9]

I agree with the latter post; Corportation shops are going to lose out and I can see this really confusing passengers. Passengers I tell you hate a major change of routing and this is an example of it.

[Stu]

Given time to get used to it, it'll work out just fine.

At the moment, buses terminate all over the place, and you still have to walk to get from say Corporation Street to Colmore Row, or Moor Street. In the future, walking round the heart of the city centre will be much more pleasant than it is now, with more sign-posts and directions between interchanges, as well as better lighting, and of course less traffic.

[Justin Tyme]

I really can't see how many passengers will see the benefit of all this if their bus used to serve Corporation Street or Upper Bull Street. Now they will be further from the City Centre shops, many workplaces and New Street Station. I wouldn't think that on a cold dark night some of these new stops will seem much of an advantage over the old stops.

All in all I am having trouble seeing this as an improvement for bus users, sorry!

I have to agree at the moment.  Buses work best when they take passengers to where they want to go, not when they stop short, however pleasant the walk may be.  "Connected City" is a way of making the best of a bad job as far as bus passengers are concerned.  No doubt we'll get used to it, and it may be that the new rule allowing short layovers in the city centre will help timekeeping.  At least it's being implemented at the start of the school holidays, so this will give a bit of breathing space for everyone to get used to it.  The real test will come in September when everyone is back at work/school/college/uni, so it will probably be October before we reach "steady state" and can give it a fair assessment.