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Ashton New Road used to be a highly competitive corridor for bus operators in Manchester. Just a few years ago Stagecoach, Dennis's and Mayne all offered frequent services between Manchester, Droylsden and Ashton-under-Lyne. Now Stagecoach have absorbed the competition and aside from a handful of tendered evening and Sunday journeys, the big Scottish operator is now king in that part of the region.
That's not the case for much longer though. Speedwell Bus are due to launch new service S50 on the 3rd of August, running between Manchester and Hey Farm via Droylsden, Audenshaw, Ashton-under-Lyne, Mossley Brookbottom and Micklehurst. With a frequency of every 20 minutes, this is a pretty audacious new service lunch from the small operator during a time when most operators are cutting back. It offers a more direct link between Mossley and Manchester than Stagecoach's 217/218 circular services. We expect Stagecoach will launch retaliation sooner rather than later.
The new service is listed in the notes for last Friday's meeting of the GMITA Transport Network Committee. While the Authority's website still doesn't list the meeting notes at the time of writing, Manchester Buses reader Rob did some digging and found that the notes are on their servers anyway.
Speedwell's expansion is an oasis of good news in an ocean of cutbacks. JP Travel are withdrawing service 12 (Middleton - Moorclose). This service was recently cut in half, with new service 13 (Middleton - Boarshaw) covering the other half of the route. It appears the Boarshaw part was more successful than the Moorclose part.
You remember we wrote about the forthcoming withdrawal of Stagecoach's 200 (Shudehill - Piccadilly) late-night shuttle? The Committee's notes reveal just how poorly used the service was. Just 62 passengers used it between the end of January and the start of April. Elsewhere, Speedwell Bus are rerouting service 343 (Hyde - Oldham) in the Mossley area from the end of June.
You might well think that GMPTE-supported bus service would be safe from cutbacks but that's not the case. Monday to Saturday evening journeys between Eccles and Manchester on service 10 (Brookhouse - Manchester) are to be cut to hourly, with the 1900 journey on Sunday evenings withdrawn too.
Monday - Saturday evening journeys on the 16 (Altrincham - Manchester) are being reduced from hourly to operate every 2 hours. This follows Arriva's recent curtailing of Saturday daytime journeys to run between Sale and Manchester only. These new cuts mean Ashton-upon-Mersey and Withington Road in Whalley Range will have a virtually useless connection to Manchester during the evenings. However, given low usage figures the cuts are no surprise
There is some good news though, evening and Sunday journeys on the 52 (Pendleton - Failsworth) and Sunday journeys on the 53 (Pendleton - Cheetham) will continue.
While the future of the 95 (Pendleton - Bolton) is still hanging in the balance, it looks likely that it will continue to operate between Pendleton and Whitefield, with service 513 rerouted to maintain the service in Stand.
Sunday journeys on the 167 (Manchester - Norden) look likely to be withdrawn due to low usage, although the contract for Monday - Saturday daytime journeys has been subject to a flurry of bidding from operators so there's no danger of them disappearing.
Service 173 (Manchester - Stepping Hill Hospital) is having its temporary re-routing via Manchester Royal Infirmary (instead of Ancoats) being made permanent after GMPTE received no complaints about the change. In fact, passengers reportedly found the new route useful.
The future of evening journeys on service 182 (Manchester - Shaw) was hanging in the balance at Friday's meeting. Committee members were asked to decide whether to keep it running (maintaining a 30 minute frequency along Broadway) or to withdraw it (meaning only one bus per hour along Broadway). Withdrawing the 182 would also mean a lost link to the Royal Oldham Hospital during the evenings. Let's hope the members of the Committee made the right choice.
Other changes being discussed were: cutting the Saturday daytime journeys on service 245 (Altrincham - Flixton) to run between Sale and Flixton only, with the frequency halved to hourly. Two morning journeys during school holidays on service 377 (Stockport - Woodford) were set for the chop, as were two Monday to Friday journeys on service 438 (Rochdale - Lane Head) and a Saturday morning journey on service 584 (Leigh - Crankwood). The Standish and Shevington Local Link service was set to lose its Sunday journeys, but see journeys through the rest of the week extended to cover Trevore Drive and Alden Close.
You can read the full notes from Friday's meeting here (PDF link).
[Image credit: a bus stop that's only going to get busier with Speedwell Bus' new service S50, by Ingy the Wingy on Flickr]
Well, at least they tried. When Stagecoach launched nightbus services from Shudehill Interchange to destinations in south Manchester last year it was hailed as a boon to Northern Quarter and Printworks revellers. Then recently Stagecoach axed these routes and replaced them with a shuttle bus, numbered 200, linking Shudehill with Piccadilly Gardens where buses to the south of the city traditionally start their journeys.
Now the GMPTE website reveals that as of the 12th of June the 200 is axed and late-night travellers will have to walk to Piccadilly instead. It's no real surprise. In the time you'd have waited for a bus and then made the slow journey through several sets of traffic lights you could have walked.
In our experience the true culprit here is quite simply taxis - if you've been paying close to £4 per pint in bars like Bluu, you're probably perfectly happy to pay for a taxi rather than trek off through the rain-and-vomit-soaked streets to catch a bus.
If you had been drinking all night, the bus would probably look something like this one, by Zawtowers on Flickr.
From time to time we like to share posts from other blogs that you may be interested in, and here's a real gem. Actually, it's more the opposite of a Gem* as it's a profile of late 80s/early 90s Manchester bus operator The Bee Line Buzz Company.
Stuart Vallantine has done his usual thorough job of covering the history of the operator and even includes a list of the routes they were operating back in 1987. You can read the post over at his East of the M60 blog here.
As a side note, does anyone have a list of the services Bee Line ran later in their life? Ian's photo here shows them operating the 197 (Manchester - Stockport) in 1992. They operated an 82 (Chorlton - Manchester - Oldham _ Rushcroft) around the same time. Does anyone have a full list?
(* Bad 80s bus pun - if you don't get it you will after you read Stuart's article).
[Image credit: Coradia1000 on Flickr]
Do you want to talk to transport bosses Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority's plans for the region's transport? Well you can't - you're too late, your chance was this morning. Even if you'd have known about it, chances are you wouldn't have been able to make it - it was at 10.30am on a Monday and you were probably busy.
GMITA's seminar at the Town Hall was billed by Chairman Matt Colledge as "A great opportunity for members of the public to discuss public transport with the very people who are in charge of it.
"These are exciting times. We're in the middle of a £700 million investment in Metrolink, real headway is being made on the Manchester rail hub study, and we are continuing to explore the new powers to improve bus services afforded by the Local Transport Act.
"So I'd urge anyone with an interest in our buses, trains and trams to come along to this event and find out more."
That's brilliant Matt! We'd love to come! The problems?
Cynical voices would say that GMITA doesn't want our opinions at all. They'd suggest that Colledge and chums hold consultations with little notice at inconvenient times in order to reduce the amount of feedback they have to deal with. After all, a public consultation took place this morning even if many people who would have wanted to be there didn't know about it. GMITA tick 'Public Consultation' off the list and move on.
With big improvements to transport in Manchester on the cards again we think GMITA can and should do better. Engage with us! Hold evening meetings, give a couple of weeks' notice and give people a place to peruse and discuss the plans online in advance. GMITA committee meeting minutes hold lots of information but who has the time, patience and stamina to read them all regularly?
So GMITA, let's see you step up your game and engage us!
Did you really think our Councillors would let us down and leave us high and dry once the TIF bid was rejected? Okay, you probably did, but they have actually been busying themselves behind the scenes to formulate a 'Plan B' for the future of Greater Manchester's public transport.
The Manchester Evening News' David Ottewell has got hold of the document that outlines their plans. The document lists the projects that the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) believe might actually see the light of day. An innovative new 'Greater Manchester Transport Fund' has been devised that would pool a wide range of funding, including Department for Transport Money and loans against future revenues from new Metrolink extensions, to ensure that a number of the TIF projects are realised. AGMA believe this fund could boost the region's growth rate by 20%.
Projects considered top priority include Metrolink extensions from Chorlton to East Didsbury, Rochdale Station to Rochdale town centre and Droylsden to Ashton-under-Lyne, the Leigh-Salford-Manchester guided busway and "elements" of the cross-city bus package which would see new routes introduced linking Wilmslow Road with Salford Crescent and Chorlton with Middleton among other new links. Controversially, the other top-priority projects all involve new roads being built, including bypasses in Mottram and Ashton-under-Lyne.
Projects deemed less-essential include the Metrolink extensions to the Airport, new interchanges for Bolton and Altrincham. Depending on funding these projects could still go ahead but improvements to rail stations, a new interchange for Stockport and a Metrolink extension to Trafford Park all look unlikely.
It's all very promising but there's a long road ahead. As David Ottewell says, the meeting on Friday where this was all discussed was "Very polite" and "Very little was decided".
[Image credit: Frankie Roberto on Flickr]
Board a First Manchester bus and you expect the driver to have a northern dialect - but your ticket?
When Tom Browning bought his First Week ticket today he was amused to see the text "This ticket is not transferrable duck" printed at the bottom.Take a look at the text right at the bottom of the photo here to see the odd turn of phrase.
For those not familiar with Manchester dialect, "Duck" is often used as a term of endearment but you wouldn't expect your bus ticket to be quite so familiar!
Has anyone else seen this rather odd phenomenon? Are First now taking a more lighthearted approach, has someone in charge of printing tickets had a bit of fun on the job or is it just an innocent printing error?
UPDATE: As commenters have pointed out - First use a different word every week to counter ticket fraud. Apparently there have been some occasional rude ones too. Being based in south Manchester we've never experienced this phenomenon - just First's exorbitant single fare prices :)
