London Banter - View Single Post

Roland Perry · April 27th 17, 09:38 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In message , at 03:05:43
on Thu, 27 Apr 2017, remarked:

It's also made Trumpington a viable Park & Ride car park for Cambridge
station with route R, never thought of when the busway was planned and
first open.

A direct route was always in the original plan. Years of doing a
scenic tour of Addenbrookes was a cost saving measure.

Not the turning round at the station, avoiding all road traffic delays,
wasn't though.

Sure, it was suppose to be part of the longer through routes, but
those were supposed to have sufficient "bus priority measures".

Nobody thought of a busway Park & Ride shuttle until a bus company with a
bit of marketing go thought of the idea. Just as well it's not a
nationalised monopoly as some would have.

I'm not talking about a shuttle! The original plan was for the southern
section to have two separate routes: one from the P&R to Addenbrookes in
3 minutes [it currently takes longer than that just to circumnavigate
the hospital site!], and another from the P&R to the station in 5
minutes, and beyond.

At the time there was some speculation about how the hospital might be
served from the station, with a guess that maybe buses would travel
North-City-Station-P&R-Addenbrookes-P&R-Station-City-North to provide a
through service for patients.

They changed their mind at some stage, resulting in the six(!) minute
trip from P&R to Addenbrookes and seventeen to the station.

[Of course the original Cambridge-Huntingdon timing of 42 mins has been
busted too, being 64 minutes in the current timetable)

At present the southern section is grossly under-used with
nothing after 8pm or on Sundays.

You keep telling us the P&R is for shoppers, and not many of those
catered for historically that late, nor is the much going on a
Addenbrookes.

I have said no such thing. I have said that people staying most of the day,
at whom Park & Ride is aimed, often do shopping as well as other things like
tourism. You are the one falsely assuming rigid market segmentation that
doesn't exist.

When I used to complain about the P&R being unsuitable for commuters
from Cambridge, you used to claim that's because it was for shoppers.
--
Roland Perry