Re-reading the
plan, I am having real difficulty in seeing how it is actually going to deliver the easy interchanges described, even when everything is running to time. Is there some other documentation that I haven't seen?
AIUI, the plan does not involve modifications to roads (beyond the odd bit of paving and a shelter at bus stops). So it doesn't look like we are looking at the Swiss picture of a railway station with off-road stops immediately beside the entrance.
At Grindleford, the proposed route diagram (p19 of the
plan) shows a dotted line from station to buses. It is more like 0.5km than the 1.75km marked, but it renders tight connections impossible. And I wouldn't recommend the walk to those of a nervous disposition during hours of darkness.
At Hathersage, the route diagram shows a dotted line (no distance indicated) from station to buses. For buses to Eyam and Bakewell, it looks as if buses might manage the modest detour via the station forecourt. So presumably the dotted line is for route 272 (Sheffield-Hathersage-Castleton): unless that adds a detour via the station (in which case why the dotted line?), passengers face an 8 minute walk to the main road stops in the centre of the village.
At Hope, the plan shows a 275m walk to the bus (I reckon it is not that bad - nearer 200m).
At Bamford, unless the plans is for buses to/from the south to make a 345-degree turn onto/from the A6013, then passengers using north-south buses will have a similar 200m-odd walk between train and bus. The diagram suggests no diversion for east-west buses - passengers connecting with the train from these services would have something like a 400m walk to east-west bus stops on the A6187.
Those walking times really matter. Even for a 200m walk (half the length of an HS2 train!), allowing for the less-agile to make the connection I reckon you need to allow an extra three minutes each way, taking a four-minute "connection window" up to 10 minutes.
That changes things a lot. If I am a passenger on a through bus, I will tolerate a four minute delay to my journey at a "hub" station even if nobody actually uses the connection opportunity that run. But 10 minutes feels like an age to be sitting on a stationary bus at a stop, especially if it turns out that nobody has got off or on that time. And the balance of benefit between passengers now able to make a reasonably tight train-bus connection vs the time wasted for through passengers on the bus may not look like a net benefit.
There is also perhaps a safety issue of buses making prolonged connection waits at a main-road bus stop. We can expect cars to queue behind a bus while it stops to unload and then load already-waiting passengers. But we can't expect cars to queue for many minutes as the bus waits to make connections. Are there more stringent planning requirements for main-road locations which will be bus stands rather than mere stops?
