Bus Stations in Birmingham

[EK40]

Regarding Black Country Bus Spotter's assertion about other cities, above, several of those cited do, in fact, have such facilities.
Leeds Bus & Coach Station, Dyer Street, is served by more than 30 bus services plus NX and Megabus coaches.
Edinburgh Bus Station, Elder Street, is served by NX, City link and other longer-distance buses by Stagecoach, Border etc.
Glasgow's Buchanan Bus Station has 57 departure stands for Flixbus, NX, Citylink, Hannon and Megabus coaches and more than 40 bus services.
Norwich Bus Station, Surrey Street, serves NX, Megabus and out-of-town services of First, Konectbus and Sanders.
Newcastle has almost adjoining bus stations at Eldon Square and Haymarket served by Arriva and Go North East.

Most large cities with bus stations tend to use them for coach and long services, with local services having normal city stops, the issue with birmingham being we dont really have much stand out long distance services unlike other cities where you would have for example:

leeds - coastliner and other transdev services which are specially branded with high spec vehicles
nottingham - trentbarton services which as well are branded with high-spec vehicles
bristol - long distance services serving the cities of bath,weston,taunton,yeovil etc... under badgerline and bath city (part of wells) branding

while with birmingham we dont really have any standout intercity services such as these, which would make use of a bus station, and cities that do use bus stations for local services have two or even three interchanges to serve all these services in addition to a pre-existing coach station. and even then these cities still have local services which serve the city only with no bus station.

[Rachvince53]

Not stand sharing just in the same area which it already does but you could rearrange it 25, 27/27A, 81, 8/X8 on that side Serving Dudley moving the 5, 6/6A and maybe 9 and 891 to a different side. The 25 should be close to the 529 as well as the services that serve Goldthorn Park, the 82 could also stop near there and the 79. The 529 kept near the 9 and 69, 11 kept where it is maybe, 2, 32 and 33 possibly share a stand. 15/16 kept where they are any spare stands is where the other buses move, the 5, 6/6A kept together the Arriva 9, 10/10A could share a stand as the Compton Road Services maybe the91 could be paired with the 5/5A as they go similar routes once out of Wolverhampton. 57 could be paired with 82 and the 63/64/65 and 53 moved somewhere else

Unfortunately that would cause too much congestion at some of the stands. The Arriva 9 & Banga 891 could move to the 10/10A stand as they have more in common with those services than your suggestion of the 5/5a which has more in common with the 6. The 63 & 64 should stay close to the 15/16 stand as they serve the wider Penn area. 

[Tony]

Unfortunately that would cause too much congestion at some of the stands. The Arriva 9 & Banga 891 could move to the 10/10A stand as they have more in common with those services than your suggestion of the 5/5a which has more in common with the 6. The 63 & 64 should stay close to the 15/16 stand as they serve the wider Penn area.

There's plenty of complications not being considered as well. A 20 minute frequency service cannot share a stand with a 15 minute frequency service for example

[Westy]

I remember when they opened Walsall, one set of passengers were moaning they were at the wrong end of the bus station in relation to the shops!

(Thinking it was the old 355 route?)

Thought at the time, as the Cannock routes were still in St Pauls Street, you ought to be grateful!

Ironically, if it was the 355, the present day equivalent, 35/36, is still in the 'wrong place'!

[Crosville]

Birmingham doesn't really need a bus station in the City Centre for local routes, because of far too many routes & a load of routes are high frequency too, frequent routes like the 50 could need 2 or 3 layover spaces as well as stand space should a bus station be built.

Whilst the likes of Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol & few other Towns & Cities have bus stations, however they're used by regional routes & coaches, most of the local routes operate as cross town routes, or start/terminate at another location Town/City Centre

[Ian Hardy]

Leon Daniels when he was Head of Surface Transport at TfL gave a presentation to a London Omnibus Transport Society meeting sometime before COVID. He mentioned that somebody had had the great idea of pedestrianising Oxford Street, when asked what would happen to the buses, the promoter of that scheme suggested that the bus routes could terminate at Marble Arch or Tottenham Court Road. The response was: at the west end (Marble Arch) it would be easier as TfL would have to concrete over a large part of Hyde Park for the buses to layover, but it would be more difficult at the east end (Tottenham Court Road) because what would the promoter knock down for space for the buses to layover. Strangely that scheme has gone away.

This is why London has never had a Central Bus Station for all routes as that would need to use the whole of Hyde Park and that wouldn't be popular.

Birmingham's problem is that the city loop: New Street, Corporation Street & Colmore Row which was a large anticlockwise loop with most services stopping along some part of the loop. The buses were banished from the city loop when the tram line was constructed, so now interchange between routes is difficult.

In England's 25 largest places only one place has a bus station where all routes that serve the city centre call and even there, one route only serves it in one direction and that place is Kingston upon Hull. The Paragon Interchange has 42 stands and has a common concourse with Hull Paragon railway station, however Hull is tiny compared to Birmingham.