London Banter - View Single Post - Route 73

Jason · September 13th 04, 04:16 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On 10 Sep 2004 02:36:12 -0700, (Tim) wrote:

At the end of the first week of operation of the route 73 benders,
here's a few notes I have made on the level of service:

Hopefully my observations might be of interest too:

I travel from Essex Road (N1) railway station to King's Cross
Thameslink railway station and back during each weekday peak, normally
on a 73 - but am now often chosing other (multiple) buses due to a
poorer service.

Journey times heading both south and north have increased
significantly. This short stretch used to take around ten minutes, but
over the last week journey times have stretched to around 20 minutes
in some instances.

Travelling northbound, it is now very rare that I get a seat.
Previously, either due to the higher frequency of the service, or the
design of RMs I almost always got a seat.

The northbound Islington area from the A501 into the A1 via White Lion
Street is far harder for the bus to negotiate now. During one evening
journey last week cars overtook on the left as we attempted to pull
into the stop outside the Jury's Inn hotel. Due to the length of the
bus and the turning space required getting into the bus lane along
White Lion Street becomes far more difficult with only a marginal
increase when traffic queues. Turning left from White Lion Street into
Upper Street is a mess too given the increased 'merging' space the
buses need.

The southbound section of the Angel tube/Upper Street bus stop area
seems to present difficulty too. Most drivers seem to have greater
difficulty than in a RM when getting from the bus lane, across two
lanes of traffic in order to turn right into Pentonville Road. Perhaps
a greater level of confidence will come in time, but at the moment the
drivers are driving like my grandmother!

In summary: a less frequent, slower, more crowded service where I now
rarely get a seat. Thanks Ken - what an improvement!
(And I can't even take advatange of the 'free' fares, needing a
Travelcard for other parts of my journey!)

Cheers,

Jason.