In message , Dave Arquati
writes

Hammersmith is an excellent example.

Except, of course, it was too small from the outset - hence the reason
why it is now having to be extended at enormous cost.

--
Paul Terry

Paul Terry wrote:
In message , Dave Arquati
writes

Hammersmith is an excellent example.

Except, of course, it was too small from the outset - hence the
reason why it is now having to be extended at enormous cost.

When are they due to start work? Do you have an online reference? Are
they going to extend over the tube station (which always seemed to me
what they should have done in the first place)?
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message
...

The bus station strikes me as an embarassing afterthought...

More like something that was forced by the planning department.

Might be interesting if the pub gets a 24-hour license...

Which one? The Shotz Cherry Tree?

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:04:10 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

Piccadilly Gardens was my one disappointment when I spent a few days
last month in Manchester, a city I knew well until about 5 years ago.
It now rivals Jubilee Gardens in London for the worst city centre garden
in the country. (There used to be a website of an American couple who
picked out Jubilee Gardens as a romantic-sounding spot in London to have
their wedding blessed, and were deeply disappointed that it didn't even
have a single tree.)

It is total rubbish. There's the Berlin Wall, the fountains never
work, the lawns flood when it rains and have been worn bare by people
walking on them. I'm starting to miss the winos and smackheads in the
old sunken garden!

But then again it was brought to us by the council who let the Free
Trade
Hall be gutted internally and turned into a faceless hotel

I thought Manchester's council/planners/whoever had done rather well in
the rest of the city centre. As for the Free Trade Hall, it always had
a better frontage outside than acoustics inside IMHO. At least they've
kept the frontage, so "faceless" is not literally true.

I'll let you have that on the FTH

Overall they've done OK but there are one or two abomonations
around...

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 06:55:45 GMT, (Neil
Williams) wrote:


I perhaps deliberately ignored the (1)4x silliness, because you'd need
an entire bus station on its own to cater for those. The solution to
that is route tendering and simplification (e.g. send some through
services down the 50 route instead, and interchange at Parrs Wood) to
get the number of permutations down. I don't see why GMPTE should
fund a huge bus station to cater for the Oxford Road silliness, nor
why a large swathe of Manchester City Centre should be decimated to
cater for it.

No doubt there'll be some worthy words about it in LTP2. Lets see if
the PTE do anything although as it isn't a tram they probably don't
give a crap...

On 14 Aug 2005 16:06:01 -0700, "Paul Weaver"
wrote:

I've heard a lot of talk about hybrid vehicles which switch to electric
power in places like high streets where fumes are a big problem

Indeed, I spent a sunny summers day in Manchester last year, lovely
place, with no stinking buses arround the area. It was all
pedestrianised apart from the metro. Down south "pedestrianised" seems
to mean chocked with buses beltching diesel fumes making it impossible
to breathe. I don't notice fumes from cars, even 4x4s, but buses are
worse than smokers.

I take it you went nowhere near either Piccadilly Gardens or Oxford
Road, then?

Interesting how different people view places. As a resident I think
one of the worst things about Manc is the almost total absence of
meaningful pedestrianisation. Mind you, one of the only places worse
(IMHO) is London.

(Woo! dragged it back on topic!)

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 22:32:46 +0100, Cheeky wrote:

No doubt there'll be some worthy words about it in LTP2. Lets see if
the PTE do anything although as it isn't a tram they probably don't
give a crap...

M(cynical)X is that they generally ignore it because it requires no
subsidy despite running very nearly[1] 24 hours a day.

[1] Just try to get a 42 early on a Sunday morning...

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 22:35:17 +0100, Cheeky wrote:

Interesting how different people view places. As a resident I think
one of the worst things about Manc is the almost total absence of
meaningful pedestrianisation.

Much of the Gardens seems to be...

Mind you, one of the only places worse
(IMHO) is London.

Agreed. Oxford Street would be far better *without* the stream of
slow-moving buses and narrow pavements. There has to be a better way
of serving it.

As to the smell of cars vs. buses, I see what the poster means. Brand
new buses generally have low emissions. Old ones don't - and the car
"fleet" is getting newer a lot quicker than the bus fleet. The use of
old crap that's long overdue a single to the scrapyard is one of the
major problems with the Oxford Road farce.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

"John Rowland" typed


"Helen Deborah Vecht" wrote in message
...

The bus station strikes me as an embarassing afterthought...

More like something that was forced by the planning department.

No doubt.

Might be interesting if the pub gets a 24-hour license...

Which one? The Shotz Cherry Tree?

I was thinking of the Tally Ho...

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

I take it you went nowhere near either Piccadilly Gardens or Oxford
Road, then?

Picc. Gardens is pretty pedestrianised (the bit leading down to the
arndale anyway). I don't count oxford road as the middle of manchester
as it's south of the A57M. The only reason you'd go down there is to
rip some students off or visit the BBC

I was thinking of the area around exchange square really.

Interesting how different people view places. As a resident I think
one of the worst things about Manc is the almost total absence of
meaningful pedestrianisation. Mind you, one of the only places worse
(IMHO) is London.

Exeter's "pedestrianisation" still means mad bus drivers mowing you
over. I'd rather have the 4x4's/