Trivia: UK bus stations not fit for purpose

[Dwarfer1979]

Further to my previous remarks about St. Margaret's Bus Station, it appears that the situation is only getting worse with even more Flixbus departures vying for space in the bus station. Yesterday afternoon, I arrived at the bus station from Coalville just in time to witness FOUR Flixbuses trying to use the bus station at once.

Stand SA, used by holiday coaches as mentioned previously, was occupied by a Daish's coach; stand SB, the only bay in the bus station allocated to Flixbus, was being used by a service 087 Flixbus from Plymouth to Nottingham, while a service 079 Flixbus to Manchester was waiting in a layover stand behind, unable to obtain a bay for itself to begin its own journey from.

Within minutes of my arrival, a service 900 Flixbus from Nottingham to Gatwick and a terminating service 005 from London also turned up at the bus station: with no free bays for coaches at that end of the bus station, they were forced to pull into the next two bays, stand SC (used by the Arriva service 127) and stand SD (used by the Skyline Derby service) respectively. The two coaches left before any conflicting buses turned up, but after they left, the 079 coach then moved across into stand SC. Not very long afterwards, a service 127 bus turned up; after an irritated honk of the horn from that bus, the driver reluctantly drove it into stand SD instead.

These incidents played out over a space of about twenty minutes.

This sort of attitude from Flixbus may explain the issues in Leeds, having 3 buses (I'll give them a bit of a pass on a terminating coach though if it was on time rather than slightly early/late it does come in to it) scheduled to be in a bus station where you only have 1.5 stands allocated suggests they aren't making a lot of effort to base services on resources or do anything about any issues and if you do it too often you are going to be asked to leave like happened in Leeds. I don't know exactly how these big national coach operators arrange "slots" since the services aren't registered in terms of specific trips (does the operator just get allocated a bay and left to it and just required to report how many calls are made or do they tell the managers when they want calls and told which stand to use for each call?) but there are some lightly used stands both in the bus station and nearby that could be used so there aren't any clashes on any stand but it would appear Flixbus aren't making a lot of effort to manage that.

 

[lxfe_mxtterz]

Has been mentioned upthread already, but another vote for Guildford. Filthy, squalid hole of a place with every surface caked in pigeon poo. Clearly has not received any sort of investment for years and has fallen into such a nasty state it looks like you'd get tetanus from touching anything in there.

The outside stands across the road are (marginally) better than the indoor stands, but still suffer from being filthy and the canopies are all bashed up from where buses over the years have driven into them.

 

[SSmith2009]

Further to my previous remarks about St. Margaret's Bus Station, it appears that the situation is only getting worse with even more Flixbus departures vying for space in the bus station. Yesterday afternoon, I arrived at the bus station from Coalville just in time to witness FOUR Flixbuses trying to use the bus station at once.

Stand SA, used by holiday coaches as mentioned previously, was occupied by a Daish's coach; stand SB, the only bay in the bus station allocated to Flixbus, was being used by a service 087 Flixbus from Plymouth to Nottingham, while a service 079 Flixbus to Manchester was waiting in a layover stand behind, unable to obtain a bay for itself to begin its own journey from.

Within minutes of my arrival, a service 900 Flixbus from Nottingham to Gatwick and a terminating service 005 from London also turned up at the bus station: with no free bays for coaches at that end of the bus station, they were forced to pull into the next two bays, stand SC (used by the Arriva service 127) and stand SD (used by the Skyline Derby service) respectively. The two coaches left before any conflicting buses turned up, but after they left, the 079 coach then moved across into stand SC. Not very long afterwards, a service 127 bus turned up; after an irritated honk of the horn from that bus, the driver reluctantly drove it into stand SD instead.

These incidents played out over a space of about twenty minutes.

St Margaret's needs a reshuffle again.

I would put the 153 into stand SS with NovusDirect to free up SL allowing all of SC to SK to shuffle down by one bay.

Although IMO some coach bays should have been left outside on Gravel Street (where the taxi rank is)

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Has been mentioned upthread already, but another vote for Guildford. Filthy, squalid hole of a place with every surface caked in pigeon poo. Clearly has not received any sort of investment for years and has fallen into such a nasty state it looks like you'd get tetanus from touching anything in there.

The outside stands across the road are (marginally) better than the indoor stands, but still suffer from being filthy and the canopies are all bashed up from where buses over the years have driven into them.

It's because the whole area is slated for redevelopment, so they've not spent any money on it. Reading the planning docs, it sounds like the roadside stands will go completely, and the existing bus station will be refurbished with a deeper canopy.

 

[NorthernSpirit]

Has anyone mentioned Skipton yet? A typical North Yorkshire cheapskate effort....bleak, windswept and rainswept with no facilities other than a long unheated shelter with an above ankle-height gap at the bottom to let in the worst of the weather. What a contrast to the bus station at Keighley just a few miles away!

You didn't want to see the old one, which was more of a welded long shelter style of West Yorkshire but painted grey with rotting chipboard signs. Whilst not brilliant, at least Skipton does have something that resembles a bus station much more than the county town of Northallerton has with is nothing.

Unless things have changed I would nominate St. Ives, (Cornwall), buses reversing onto the main rd.

I was in St Ives (Cornwall) a few weeks back and was quite suprised to see its bus station being simply a single stand with the waiting room locked (seems to be now used as storage), my mate who was with me did question as to why it wasn't in the Transport for Cornwall scheme I stated that the bus station could be down to the actual ownership of the site unlike the setup in West Yorkshire where everything is painted in and laid out in the Metro theme.

 

[Gwr12345]

You didn't want to see the old one, which was more of a welded long shelter style of West Yorkshire but painted grey with rotting chipboard signs. Whilst not brilliant, at least Skipton does have something that resembles a bus station much more than the county town of Northallerton has with is nothing.

Mind you, the bus service in Northallerton isn't great, so there's no need for a bus station.

 

[Mikey C]

Flitwick Interchange - three stands for only 2-3 buses an hour plus the occasional shuttle to Woburn Centre Parcs. Conveniently sited in front of the railway station but inconvenient for buses to actually stop there because of the road layout. Buses coming from the Ampthill direction drive past on the opposite side of the road without stopping which sort of defeats the object of why it was built.View attachment 199028

Having taken a bus from Ampthill to Flitwick tonight, and like several other people having to get off at the Post Office bus stop, it's puzzling.

Is it that buses in that direction can't access it, or that the operators don't think it's worth the time delay caused to services to access it, especially as exiting the bus station you have to turn left, requiring a lop around the mini roundabout to continue west?

 

[3Counties]

A vote for the dire subterranean Aylesbury bus station.

Whilst not especially cramped it's utterly bleak place to wait for a bus.

Made all the worse by the all of the concrete blocking mobile signal preventing you from tracking your delayed inbound bus!

I'm amazed it's managed to survive for so long.