Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising

[iMarkeh]

RE: Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising

(26/07/2023 23:34)Valandil Wrote:  Yeah, if you imagine bus lanes and bus priority schemes working so that buses can run straight through traffic lights and only stop to pick up / set down, that would be great. Imagine sailing past all of the traffic jams on those key corridors.
That would make the bus more attractive.

To play devil's advocate though, schemes like bus lanes, bus priority and express buses do have the power to annoy people though, the people who they don't benefit.

It's not popular amongst the motoring lobby and sadly they scream louder than public transport users. It doesn't help of course though when you have corruption in councils and (allegedly) high up people in councils have shares in the private car parking companies. Combine that with a political agenda from a certain red party which says 'we will not make any improvements to public transport which could benefit private companies' and all political parties have policies which say 'we will only make changes where we will see the benefit or we can score political points'.

Throw all of that together, it doesn't matter how loud public transport users shout, they will always be on the back foot.

(26/07/2023 23:34)Valandil Wrote:  If you're really in a hurry to get to your destination and an express bus sails past after 1 min, you're going to be annoyed that you have to wait longer *and* get on a slower vehicle.

That is one of the main issues with express buses. By the time everyone has whinged that the bus doesn't serve their stop, it eventually becomes a normal bus and so the only way to make up time is using the roads without bus stops. Exactly the same as the X8. It was limited stop but the stops missed are the same ones which the 1 never used to stop at as usage of them stops is dismally low.

(26/07/2023 23:34)Valandil Wrote:  So like the Runcorn X1 running on the A562 and could have an express bus running via M62 to St Helens (via St Helens Linkway), maybe another via M62 to Warrington.

St Helens and Warrington would just be competing with the train though and what would slow them both down is the Edge Lane traffic which they will hit. The road to/from the motorway isn't the best.

Adding to that, one incident on the motorway and Warrington is a right mess so having the bus on the motorway and serving Warrington could be a bit of a recipe for disaster.


I think for a St Helens 'express route', you would be looking more at St Helens to Kirkby, Widnes, Speke or Ashton but that depends on what the demand would be for faster buses in these areas. Warrington could have ample express buses as their core network is so slow as it diverts down almost every other street as they don't want poor Dorris to whinge about walking the extra 100m from the main road.