Good and bad bus stations.

[TheGrandWazoo]

I think it was after 1990 the underground toilets were installed utilising the subway which had, in the early years of the bus station led to a second platform. The toilets used to be on the back wall to the right of the inspectors' cabin if memory serves. When they were moved downstairs a charge was made for any use instead of 2p for a cubicle which meant my family would use the free ones in the Bear Pit.

I seem to recall reading on Fray Bentos' Flickr site (highly recommended) that there was a corridor that connected with the old express platforms but I thought this was blocked off? You were brave heading into the bear pit though
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Ellesmere Port has a pretty good bus station, just need to clear the tramps away and place a few flower pots andthey could make it a prettier place. The design is like a chinese type one, but that maybe just me.

I guess it's personal choice but I don't like the EP one. The fact you have to walk across platforms as it's a runthru design is something I don't like
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Agree with Coventry but it's just so under-used. Such a waste of a good space.

Totally agree with the other comment re Corby, probably the worst in England. Mind you, nobody has nominated the old dump that was Luton bus station.

Robert

Very good call on that one. I remember taking some photos of it shortly before it closed - must've been 2007/8?? Frightening even in the early morning
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BAD:

Falkirk
Cumbernauld
Perth
Ayr

Words can not describe the hellish place the first two are like.

Old Haymarket undercover station in Newcastle, ( it been closed what 3 years now, it should have closed 30 years ago!)

I think you're getting mixed up. You mean the old Eldon Square one that was underneath the shopping centre, and is now used as the service area. Haymarket was rebuilt in 1996.

Also, Cumbernauld isn't actually listed as a bus station. It's just some bus stops - however, it is a truly hideous place to wait.


Can I also nominate the old Reading bus station? It's been closed for years (though had a reopening for a matter of days whilst the bus stops nearby were being modified) and still retains NBC era signage (or did up till last year).

 

[VTPreston_Tez]

A good bus station that I'd like to nominate is Preston. Okay where my local bus stops it's recently been done up with a full seat replacement and paint job as well as the introduction of appealing buildings. This is next to one of about 4 exits which take you to different parts of the city. Some parts may seem dirty and old but really they're well made up and I've never had a problem with it. (There were gangs around stands 76-80 until the bus companies finally put services over there) and it copes very well with major events, in one instance all 40 stands on the local side were packed to the rafters but the flows were maintained very well without stewards.

My bad bus station is a dead cert Trafford What tends to happen is that the services are poorly advertised and the signage is poor throughout. The other problem is a lack of decent seating and a lack of bus services to places with a decent population (and no I'm not talking about Preston, but yes a frequent service would be nice). It's mainly a case of unused potential, and it's a bit small.

Blackburn's another one but I won't go into much detail. Dingy, dangerous to navigate, and just a general inconvenience. I'm sure a few of you will have used it more than me so can describe it to a higher standard and in more detail than I can.

 

[34D]

Can I also nominate the old Reading bus station? It's been closed for years (though had a reopening for a matter of days whilst the bus stops nearby were being modified) and still retains NBC era signage (or did up till last year).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/290933...Miv-5uWTq5-7P5G6U-54p74t-95wfhb-6RyKFV-95ta8n dark and depressing....

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/290933...Miv-5uWTq5-7P5G6U-54p74t-95wfhb-6RyKFV-95ta8n dark and depressing....

Must've been 2011 when I went there. I took quite a few photos and the saw tooth design was still much in evidence.

In general, I don't much care for the older GMPTE ones (e.g. Bolton, Bury, Wigan, Leigh) though some newer ones like Oldham seems ok. Which brings me onto another relic - Rochdale. Mind you, that's on death row, isn't it?

 

[radamfi]

Has anyone done any analysis to the patronage benefit of having a bus station? And if there is one, does it need to be an enclosed building or is a simple array of stops sufficient? The leading towns for bus patronage in the deregulated part of the UK, that is Edinburgh, Oxford, Brighton and Nottingham, run the majority of their buses away from their bus stations, and the vast majority of their passengers don't use the bus stations.
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In general, I don't much care for the older GMPTE ones (e.g. Bolton, Bury, Wigan, Leigh) though some newer ones like Oldham seems ok. Which brings me onto another relic - Rochdale. Mind you, that's on death row, isn't it?

GMPTE/TfGM changed their bus station style after the rebuild of Ashton bus station. All subsequent bus stations are similar style to Oldham, e.g. Middleton, Shudehill and the new Rochdale bus station. The new Rochdale bus station is due to open soon with the subsequent demolition of the old place the other side of the new tram stop.

 

[MK Tom]

I'm going to be controversial and file Northampton under 'good'. It's badly maintained, badly lit and the rest of the building isn't properly utilised, but I personally like the building and I think it's an efficient design. Conversely the new Northampton goes straight into 'bad' for me as it's far too small for the volume of traffic it needs to handle and will damage the rest of the town centre as a result. I also don't think it'll provide sufficient weather protection.

Curious that 'under cover' is considered 'bad' as being out of the elements strikes me as good. However I'm putting Aylesbury in 'bad' because it's too small and it's a sod to get in or out of on foot. High Wycombe's Eden goes in 'good' for me, well located, light and airy. Oxford's Gloucester Green is frankly a tip and badly sited. I'd like to see a replacement for it included in the Oxpens redevelopment. Something bigger and more ambitious architecturally. At the moment Gloucester Green itself (the area) is a bit of a wart of the face of beautiful classical Oxford.

Old Corby definitely goes in bad. Anyone who doesn't know it, Google some pictures of it.

 

[Deerfold]

There does seem to be a habit of making newer bus stations only just big enough for current traffic and not allowing for the possibility that bus use may increase (including Derby, Skipton, Nottingham Victoria)

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

There does seem to be a habit of making newer bus stations only just big enough for current traffic and not allowing for the possibility that bus use may increase (including Derby, Skipton, Nottingham Victoria)

The sad fact is that many bus stations are being rebuilt as part of a retail development and that the available area is minimised so that the real revenue earning bit (i.e. the shops) is maximised. Often, an overly optimistic view of turnaround times is taken or a weighted average is used, rather than maximum figures.

As I've said before, Bath is a really good bus station in terms of the architecture; in fact, it's almost Holdenesque in the design of the drum (compare it with Arnos Grove tube). However, the number of departures in peak allied to the reduced amount of layover spaces makes it chaotic in peak.

Also, you do have architects who design without seemingly having any operational input. The new Eldon Square in Newcastle is pretty unpopular with drivers because of the angle of the first few stands having swung round the corner into it. Meanwhile, Morpeth (I think) was rebuilt but the stands were quite narrow

 

[radamfi]

Huge, lavish bus stations like those in Greater Manchester create their own problems. They work OK in the daytime as (apart from a few bays in Middleton), they are of the drive-through design so don't require buses to reverse. However in the evening and Sunday they feel intimidating due to not many people being around. They have resorted to tactics like closing much of the bus station in the evening and Sunday, meaning that you needed to be aware of the different stand arrangements. That didn't really work so now they have evening patrols of the bus stations.

Where space is tight, you could do worse than having a dynamic stand arrangement, where people wait in a communal area and only attend the stand when it is advertised, like at Eindhoven. This enables any stand to be used by any route

http://www.dse.nl/~shotbyeva/busstation.jpg

 

[Deerfold]

Also, you do have architects who design without seemingly having any operational input. The new Eldon Square in Newcastle is pretty unpopular with drivers because of the angle of the first few stands having swung round the corner into it. Meanwhile, Morpeth (I think) was rebuilt but the stands were quite narrow

Skipton actually had to be rebuilt as the "bus station" was so narrow it could not fit all the waiting people in it. It still feels very small and you get very close to people if you need to pass them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:New_bus_station_at_Skipton_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1403991.jpg

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Huge, lavish bus stations like those in Greater Manchester create their own problems. They work OK in the daytime as (apart from a few bays in Middleton), they are of the drive-through design so don't require buses to reverse.

http://www.dse.nl/~shotbyeva/busstation.jpg

I've always been an advocate of the saw tooth design. For a start, it's a more effective use of space. Secondly, you only need the one waiting area so this is easier in terms of security, proximity of amenities etc. Most importantly, it removes the passengers from the main manoeuvring area (though you will always get some lazy b*gger or occasional gricer wandering about).

I appreciate that reversing is often noted as an issue but in terms of risk assessment, this is less of an issue than pedestrian/bus collision. The worst designs are often not saw tooth but end on design especially where there is a restricted space to manoeuvre and a single entrance/exit (e.g. Oxford, Gloucester). There is no one way system and the lack of angles make it difficult for reversing drivers

 

[Eagle]

Most importantly, it removes the passengers from the main manoeuvring area (though you will always get some lazy b*gger or occasional gricer wandering about).

So does the drive-through design (at least the one in Coventry does).

 

[radamfi]

So does the drive-through design (at least the one in Coventry does).

You are more likely to need more islands for the drive-through design if a lot of buses use the bus station, like most of the bus stations in Greater Manchester.

However, my main gripe with sawtooth is the reduction in capacity caused by the need to reverse, although accidents while reversing is also an issue, hence the need for banksmen at Glasgow Buchanan Bus Station. With a drive-through design, buses can arrive one after another. Presumably this is why it is preferred in high traffic areas such as London. Sawtooth, IMO, is only suitable if high capacity isn't required.

 

[Eagle]

You are more likely to need more islands for the drive-through design if a lot of buses use the bus station, like most of the bus stations in Greater Manchester.

I dunno, Coventry's is pretty compact due to its shape (all stances arranged around three "lobes" with all buses coming in and out of the same gap). It has 20 stances currently, four for coaches and 16 for buses.

 

[Mugby]

How anyone can categorise Derby bus station as good is beyond me.

Presumably because it's relatively new, it must be 'good'? People walk along the concourse and see the shop and toilets and think it's wonderful.

Does anyone ever see the appalling congestion, the conflicting movements, buses reversing into the path of each other, the tight U turns necessary at each end, people queueing across the concourse impeding those wishing to walk along, the extreme distance from one end to the other, the lack of protection for NatEx bays and any other bay for that matter, the amount of time it takes for departing services to exit, the amount of time incoming services have to spend behind exiting services?

Does anyone who said good actually use it on a regular basis?

New (newish) isn't necessarily good, in fact Derby should be a text book example of an extremely poorly designed bus station.
But then Derby City Council were more interested in the commercial aspect than bus provisions.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

How anyone can categorise Derby bus station as good is beyond me.

Presumably because it's relatively new, it must be 'good'? People walk along the concourse and see the shop and toilets and think it's wonderful.

Does anyone ever see the appalling congestion, the conflicting movements, buses reversing into the path of each other, the tight U turns necessary at each end, people queueing across the concourse impeding those wishing to walk along, the extreme distance from one end to the other, the lack of protection for NatEx bays and any other bay for that matter, the amount of time it takes for departing services to exit, the amount of time incoming services have to spend behind exiting services?

Does anyone who said good actually use it on a regular basis?

New (newish) isn't necessarily good, in fact Derby should be a text book example of an extremely poorly designed bus station.
But then Derby City Council were more interested in the commercial aspect than bus provisions.

Don't know Derby that well but it isn't an unfamiliar story. It may be nice and shiny but the design is compromised as retail is king.

I'm old enough to remember the old Wetherby bus station. Hope the link works....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/346784...pxS-dH4NKX-dp8hPx-fSCmNz-cuPEFs-cu9fnU-enbrHU

It was a ridiculously good bus station for a town that size, doubling up as the depot as well. I remember it in the mid 1980s with a waiting room that had Tilling moquette seats!

 

[Robertj21a]

How anyone can categorise Derby bus station as good is beyond me.

Presumably because it's relatively new, it must be 'good'? People walk along the concourse and see the shop and toilets and think it's wonderful.

Does anyone ever see the appalling congestion, the conflicting movements, buses reversing into the path of each other, the tight U turns necessary at each end, people queueing across the concourse impeding those wishing to walk along, the extreme distance from one end to the other, the lack of protection for NatEx bays and any other bay for that matter, the amount of time it takes for departing services to exit, the amount of time incoming services have to spend behind exiting services?

Does anyone who said good actually use it on a regular basis?

New (newish) isn't necessarily good, in fact Derby should be a text book example of an extremely poorly designed bus station.
But then Derby City Council were more interested in the commercial aspect than bus provisions.

Derby bus station is quite good for the passenger waiting area, shop/café, toilets etc but terribly poor for buses reversing and/or having to queue for ages while other buses get out of the way. It was blatantly too small at the planning stage and there's far too many services that can't be accommodated and have to use nearby streets.

Robert

 

[Bevan Price]

I dislike bus stations that are the bus equivalent of Birmingham New Street, or platforms 3 to 6 at Manchester Victoria, i.e. dull dingy places, usually located beneath shopping centres. Lack of free toilets is another black mark, as is the lack of a bus information office (or at least availability of timetables & route maps).

Northampton is one of the worst that I have used recently - finding the way in or out was a bit of a nightmare, at least one exit using a grim subway, another exit being almost a maze through the shopping centre. Doncaster & Rotherham are also very gloomy.

Some, although covered, are relatively bright & welcoming. I quite like Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Warrington, Wolverhampton, Wigan, Bolton, Oldham, Ashton under Lyne, Hull, Chorley.

Some, like my home town, St. Helens, are too small, leaving some routes outside the bus station.

Some towns & cities don't even have bus stations. Birmingham is the worst - it may have a coach station (Digbeth), but there is no central terminal for local bus services. Darlington also seems to have lost its bus station, whilst Widnes never had one, and there seems to be nowhere offering local bus information. Nearby Runcorn High Street has a small. rather bleak bus station, but the council has closed an adjacent office which used to have tourist & bus service information.

Bus information offices have also disappeared at Ellesmere Port & Crewe bus stations.

 

[Eagle]

There are some places like Bournemouth that do have a bus station but it's not the central node of the network.

Bournemouth's bus station is adjacent to the rail station, with a sawtooth rank for coaches and an island rank for buses, but it's quite a way out from the main commercial centre, and the hubs of the bus network are the Triangle and the Square (where the bus stance letters get all the way up to Z).

 

[alwaystouchout]

Bad:

Both Nottingham stations - cold, grim, dank and depressing.
Trafford Centre - little protection when whether is bad, also uses (in my view dangerous) reversing system.
Stockport - layout impinges ease of access between stands.
Piccadilly Gardens - less of a bus station, more a collection of stops (what even constitutes a bus station anyway?)

Preston - halfway house

Good:

Derby, Warrington, Manchester Airport - all well maintained, cleaned, safe and sheltered environments.
Stratford London (one in front of the train station) - not much of a bus station but bright and well maintained, and one of the very few architecturally pleasing stations..

 

[starrymarkb]

Victoria Coach Station... Really needs smartening up, especially the drop off building!

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

There are some places like Bournemouth that do have a bus station but it's not the central node of the network.

Bournemouth's bus station is adjacent to the rail station, with a sawtooth rank for coaches and an island rank for buses, but it's quite a way out from the main commercial centre, and the hubs of the bus network are the Triangle and the Square (where the bus stance letters get all the way up to Z).

The "Interchange" is really actually the coach station, relocated from its previous location at the Shamrock and Rambler depot on nearby Holdenhurst Road. Some routes do go via the station, and certainly more than used to (Poole to Bournemouth used to only extend the odd journey past the centre) but others that could serve it like the X1/2 and X3, don't.

You mention The Square. This was the location of the (in)famous Bus and Coach Station that burnt down in 1976. It was a horseshoe shaped structure on two levels and the open air NCP car park was the site of it; you can tell by the shape of the car park. There was some talk in the local press about it being developed into a bus terminus again...idle chatter?
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Victoria Coach Station... Really needs smartening up, especially the drop off building!

The drop off area is the former Samuelsons coach depot
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Northampton is one of the worst that I have used recently - finding the way in or out was a bit of a nightmare, at least one exit using a grim subway, another exit being almost a maze through the shopping centre. Doncaster & Rotherham are also very gloomy.

Darlington also seems to have lost its bus station,

Darlington lost its hellhole of a bus station many years ago. It was a co-located depot, but the bus station must've gone 15 years ago though it survived as the depot til 2008? In the press recently, a local council bod said that Darlington didn't need a bus station; given the mess that the borough council have made of the pedestrianisation, it needs one more than most places

Agree with you on Northampton. It's dark and miserable. It's cold, despite being undercover. It's not been maintained. However, it's also structurally unsafe thanks to the derelict offices above it. It was also voted one of the top 10 most hated buildings in the UK. There was a campaign by some to save Preston.....no one came forward to save Northampton!

 

[Titfield]

The question to be asked about the Square Bus and Coach Station in Bournemouth is

What happened to the Insurance money that presumably was paid out as a result of the total loss of the building?

Rumour has it that the money was used to shore up Hants and Dorset's finances rather than rebuilding the bus and coach station.

After the fire, coach services were relocated to the Shamrock and Rambler Coach Station at 77 Holdenhurst Road Bournemouth. Tel 0202 27616.

The actual site at 77 Holdenhurst Road was IIRC owned by Whitelocks the Builders to whom S and R paid rent.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The question to be asked about the Square Bus and Coach Station in Bournemouth is

What happened to the Insurance money that presumably was paid out as a result of the total loss of the building?

Rumour has it that the money was used to shore up Hants and Dorset's finances rather than rebuilding the bus and coach station.

After the fire, coach services were relocated to the Shamrock and Rambler Coach Station at 77 Holdenhurst Road Bournemouth. Tel 0202 27616.

The actual site at 77 Holdenhurst Road was IIRC owned by Whitelocks the Builders to whom S and R paid rent.

Most certainly, as H&D was a big money loser in the 1970's/1980's. They had to re-purchase the old Bournemouth garage until the 1980 South Wessex MAP scheme when it was sold again (at a profit)
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For those people who do fancy a nice integrated bus and rail interchange.... Watford Junction is perhaps one of the great missed opportunities? Wander out the rail station and into the windswept collection of bus shelters that constitute a bus station.

 

[NLC1072]

Good: chelmsford - modern and well designed with good facilities, drive in and out with no reversing.

Bad: Becontree bus station - just a concrete floor with bus stops dotted around it next to the Olympic centre training pool with lots of bus services and no facilities.

Basildon: dated and leaky all buses have to reverse and is yet a major hub for bus connections in south essex.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Been meaning to reply to this thread for ages! Anyway, I've chosen a good and bad example from the past and present.

I'll start with the BAD!

Ormskirk is one I always disliked. I used it when driving the 'Democracy Express' (The Edge Hill Student's Union Transit minibus!) for the 2005 election- and the stands, access route, everywhere was covered in pot-holes, many down to the cobbles. It could have been resurfaced now but a google image search suggests that the passenger experience is as poor and windswept as ever.

Wakefield (old) was a special kind of hell. If you never experienced it, I'm not sure I can describe it in a way that truly conveys what a p*ss-and-rust-and-god-knows-what-else-soaked hole it was... Even the internet seems to have tried to block out the memory!

Now, the GOOD:

Huddersfield: Well, they say familiarity breeds contempt- and I guess at times I don't appreciate how much better Huddersfield's bus station is than so many others. There are certain irritating things about it. For example the stands could be allocated more wisely- it shouldn't be so hard to NOT have buses scheduled to leave the same stand at the same time. But all in all it's not bad, and not too far from the railway station either!

Bradford Interchange (old) was in my opinion more of an architectural gem than Preston. Yes, it was terribly run-down towards the end, and the open concourse of the new one works far better for passenger flow... But that old roof (with new glazing and a fresh coat of paint- perhaps the same shade of blue used at St. Pancras!) would be a magnificent sight for all those tourists on the Grand Central services to see- and perhaps forego Brontë Country for the National Media Museum instead!

 

[scotsman]

Good: Edinburgh - Warm, clean, well-maintained, secure.

Bad: Victoria - cramped, dirty, site of drug abuse.
Dunfermline - cold, closes early.

 

[AndyHudds]

Been meaning to reply to this thread for ages! Anyway, I've chosen a good and bad example from the past and present.

I'll start with the BAD!

Ormskirk is one I always disliked. I used it when driving the 'Democracy Express' (The Edge Hill Student's Union Transit minibus!) for the 2005 election- and the stands, access route, everywhere was covered in pot-holes, many down to the cobbles. It could have been resurfaced now but a google image search suggests that the passenger experience is as poor and windswept as ever.

Wakefield (old) was a special kind of hell. If you never experienced it, I'm not sure I can describe it in a way that truly conveys what a p*ss-and-rust-and-god-knows-what-else-soaked hole it was... Even the internet seems to have tried to block out the memory!

Now, the GOOD:

Huddersfield: Well, they say familiarity breeds contempt- and I guess at times I don't appreciate how much better Huddersfield's bus station is than so many others. There are certain irritating things about it. For example the stands could be allocated more wisely- it shouldn't be so hard to NOT have buses scheduled to leave the same stand at the same time. But all in all it's not bad, and not too far from the railway station either!

Bradford Interchange (old) was in my opinion more of an architectural gem than Preston. Yes, it was terribly run-down towards the end, and the open concourse of the new one works far better for passenger flow... But that old roof (with new glazing and a fresh coat of paint- perhaps the same shade of blue used at St. Pancras!) would be a magnificent sight for all those tourists on the Grand Central services to see- and perhaps forego Brontë Country for the National Media Museum instead!

Someone criticised Huddersfield Bus Station in the thread earlier, although not sure why. From a customer point of view its probably got everything you could want, an excellent Travel Centre, a bookies, a Greggs, a cafe, cash machine, security and a newsagent. The massive departures board is great, although I agree, they could do with not having buses departing within 2 minutes of each other from the same stand. One drawback of the station is the toilet facilities, they aren't big enough and are often a bit scratty, despite constant cleaning. All in all its great for the passengers.

 

[Robertj21a]

Someone criticised Huddersfield Bus Station in the thread earlier, although not sure why. From a customer point of view its probably got everything you could want, an excellent Travel Centre, a bookies, a Greggs, a cafe, cash machine, security and a newsagent. The massive departures board is great, although I agree, they could do with not having buses departing within 2 minutes of each other from the same stand. One drawback of the station is the toilet facilities, they aren't big enough and are often a bit scratty, despite constant cleaning. All in all its great for the passengers.

Just be careful with the 'security' staff - a number of reports of them being aggressive and full of self-importance.

Robert

 

[dvboy]

Wolverhampton is nice, but has ongoing issues with its passenger information screens displaying duff information.

Out of all those locally, for ease of use and appearance, I like Stourbridge.