Hi,
Live close to the Bluestar 1 route in Southampton which is being affected later this month for 4 weeks due to the complete closure to southbound traffic of Bassett Avenue.
Won't go into whether it's a good idea to close such a key route during weekdays - but obviously the Bluestar 1 is being diverted.
Problem is that there is no contingency/temporary timetable in place; the website simply says "journey times are expected to increase by around 10 minutes" (see http://www.bluestarbus.co.uk/article.shtml?articleid=8015).
The issue with that is, if you live south of the blocked road, you can't rely on the bus turning up at any particular time, particularly problematic in the morning rush hour when frequency reduces from 15 minutes to around 20-25. For example, the 08:15 bus - will it arrive at 08:25, or (as I suspect it is, with all the Avenue traffic coming through Swaythling area instead) is the 'around 10 minutes' hopelessly optimistic, and will it actually arrive at 08:35 or 08:45? Impossible to tell!
Luckily I can use the U1 or U2 instead (slightly longer walk, but can use them) but I am surprised that a temporary timetable - even one with a reduced frequency - hasn't been drawn up as they do when engineering works impact the trains. Surely better to have a contingency timetable that operates to a timetable - even a reduced-frequency one (as obviously total journey time is going to be longer) than getting people to guess?
Live close to the Bluestar 1 route in Southampton which is being affected later this month for 4 weeks due to the complete closure to southbound traffic of Bassett Avenue.
Won't go into whether it's a good idea to close such a key route during weekdays - but obviously the Bluestar 1 is being diverted.
Problem is that there is no contingency/temporary timetable in place; the website simply says "journey times are expected to increase by around 10 minutes" (see http://www.bluestarbus.co.uk/article.shtml?articleid=8015).
The issue with that is, if you live south of the blocked road, you can't rely on the bus turning up at any particular time, particularly problematic in the morning rush hour when frequency reduces from 15 minutes to around 20-25. For example, the 08:15 bus - will it arrive at 08:25, or (as I suspect it is, with all the Avenue traffic coming through Swaythling area instead) is the 'around 10 minutes' hopelessly optimistic, and will it actually arrive at 08:35 or 08:45? Impossible to tell!
Luckily I can use the U1 or U2 instead (slightly longer walk, but can use them) but I am surprised that a temporary timetable - even one with a reduced frequency - hasn't been drawn up as they do when engineering works impact the trains. Surely better to have a contingency timetable that operates to a timetable - even a reduced-frequency one (as obviously total journey time is going to be longer) than getting people to guess?