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Trivia: Most underwhelming "bus station"

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jammy36

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I'm suprised nobody has mentioned Malakoff bus station in St Ives. It's nothing more than a reversing area and a small hardstanding for passengers. There's not even a shelter.
I think the view alone must discount The Malakoff from any discussion of underwhelming bus stations!

It's also been refurbished relatively recently and now has a small waiting room.

Interestingly, many may not realise it is actually far more than a reversing area and hardstanding. The platform at The Malakoff is actually a cantilevered roof for a bus garage built in 1931 and intended to be accessed via a ramp off Skidden Hill.

Legal wranglings over right of access and complaints about obstructing access to a neighbouring doctor's car garage meant the bus depot was never used, other than for storage (and would be entirely unsuited to newer larger buses).

What with high construction costs, legal fees, etc The Malakoff probably represents - in terms of £ per square foot - the most expensive bus parking/turning area built.
 
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Andyh82

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Also I believe it is only the anti clockwise Lands End Coaster that actual uses the bus station to let passengers board and alight now. All other services only use it as a means of turning around before using a bus stop further up the road
 

jupiter

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Another South nomination I'm going to put forward is Basingstoke's bus station. Ok, granted, compared to some of the others mentioned here it is a relatively modern one having been rebuilt as part of the Festival Place shopping centre back in 2002. But, it's now feeling it's age with the paving slabs often lose, tree's growing up and causing associated paving damage, Stagecoach travel centre closed (so no indoor waiting area or information point) and roofs of the glass shelters dirty. As Festival Place is a no smoking shopping centre, someone also had the wonderful foresight to locate their smoking bins at the entrance to the bus station so you often have to walk through a cloud of smoke (and past the only remaining shop down there - Greggs). It's also suffered in part because of it's location - there seems to be an almost permanent and cold microclimate in certain areas of Basingstoke town centre, possibly caused by the large tall tower blocks which allow the wind to funnel around them, unfortunately the bus station is at the bottom of them (sandwiched between Festival Place and the Churchill Way building). It should have either been built with the passenger areas covered over completely, or shouldn't have had tree's plonked into the paving. Unfortunately it seems to either be down to Festival Place or Stagecoach to maintain, and neither seem particularly interested.



To be fair to Malakoff, First Kernow has invested in it a little more since the street view car last came around, and is looking a little smarter than that now. I'm not sure if the building on the left is also now used as a staffed waiting room too?
I don’t know about staffed but I waited in there last August (2022).
 

DunsBus

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The old Edinburgh bus station definitely fell into the underwhelming category. By the time of closure in 2000 it definitely had an air of tiredness about it, not helped by three of the platforms being covered over by an office block, toilets that had seen better days and subways that you only used if you were desperate (being regular haunts for druggies). Not a good advert at all for Scotland's capital city.
 

Busaholic

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I think the view alone must discount The Malakoff from any discussion of underwhelming bus stations!

It's also been refurbished relatively recently and now has a small waiting room.

Interestingly, many may not realise it is actually far more than a reversing area and hardstanding. The platform at The Malakoff is actually a cantilevered roof for a bus garage built in 1931 and intended to be accessed via a ramp off Skidden Hill.

Legal wranglings over right of access and complaints about obstructing access to a neighbouring doctor's car garage meant the bus depot was never used, other than for storage (and would be entirely unsuited to newer larger buses).

What with high construction costs, legal fees, etc The Malakoff probably represents - in terms of £ per square foot - the most expensive bus parking/turning area built.
Front page news in Cornishman local paper last week - old St Ives Bus Depot up for sale. I wasn't prepared to buy the paper, but I gather the 'three storey former bus depot' (!) is for sale at £1.25 million. Maybe that standing area won't be available much longer.
 

geoffk

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Department for Transport rules around stop naming forbids the presence of a locality in the stop name (unless it is part of the road name).
Don't understand this. The guided busway stops are more like tram stops than bus stops. While locals know that Astley Street is the stop for Tyldesley, anyone from outside the area might not know and would be looking for a stop with Tyldesley in the name.
 

Bletchleyite

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Don't understand this. The guided busway stops are more like tram stops than bus stops. While locals know that Astley Street is the stop for Tyldesley, anyone from outside the area might not know and would be looking for a stop with Tyldesley in the name.

Is not the reason for this that the full name as used on Traveline etc already includes the locality, thus if it is in the stop name it would be duplicated? I can't see that anything would prevent Transport for Greater Manchester printing this full name on the stop.

bustimes.org shows the full name of this stop as "Tyldesley, adjacent to Astley Street"
 

adrock1976

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What's it called? It's called Cumbernauld
There are two Scottish ones superficially alike, neither of which use the words "bus station" but in reality that's what they are. One, Livingston, much better than it used to be, still shelters on either side of the road between the two parts of the covered shopping centre but now there are working displays giving next departures from each (though nothing central giving details of which services/destinations use each stop). Two, Cumbernauld, three stops in a long layby on either side of the road between the two parts of the covered shopping centre, the road being a fast dual carriageway with a central barrier not crossable by pedestrians, whose only route between the staggered sides is upstairs by a convoluted, unsignposted route to the overbridge, with a similar one downstairs.

Livingston is in the open and the road is fairly quiet, possibly just buses using it. Cumbernauld is effectively underground on the south east side, being under the overbridge and subject to echoing traffic noise and exhaust fumes. Livingston is just about OK, Cumbernauld is underwhelming not because it's minimal but because it's horrible

Agree about Cumbernauld, surprising that it is a 40min road. Livingston Bus Terminal is technically listed as a “pedestrianised zone” which the buses can access. It does struggle with the amount of buses these days, especially with so many timetabled at the same time.

Bo’ness Bus Station is pretty underwhelming. Just 4/5 shelters with no immediate amenities other than a Farmfoods.

Glenrothes, Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy are much, much bigger places. Perhaps a better measure is how many small towns have a bus station as good as St Andrews... Peterhead? Arbroath?



Cumbernauld is much worse than underwhelming - it's appalling

Regarding the carriageway not being crossable by pedestrians, Cumbernauld New Town was deliberately designed to have pedestrians and bicycles segregated from motorised traffic. Cumbernauld was designated a New Town (Mark I) in 1955 at a time when there was a post WWII increase in private car ownership.

The Town Centre when first constructed was a megastructure of a Brutalist design, and was Europe's very first indoor covered shopping centre. On the Falkirk/Stirling side (Town Centre North) there used to be the Golden Eagle hotel. This got damaged when a vehicle hit that part of the building in the late 1970s/early 80s and was demolished. The north side of the town centre was all demolished in phases and bits stuck on in the 1980s, hence how the north side can be hot in summer and chilly in winter (similar as to how Partick railway station was at the top of the escalators before the rebuild before the Commonwealth Games).

The only part of the original megastructure of the Town Centre that remains is the alien lookalike in E.T. on the Glasgow side beyond Tesco travelling towards the Village. The Monklands Mafia of the Labour Party (North Lanarkshire Council - Cumbernauld was never part of Lanarkshire before 1975, which it was in Dunbartonshire, with neighbouring Kilsyth having historically having been in Stirlingshire) do have plans according to their website for total demolition of both sides of the Town Centre and to rebuild it, creating a single level town centre hub with Central Way (the dual carriageway between the Town Centre West and East roundabouts) becoming a civic square. It seems that through traffic will be routed via St Mungo's Road and/or North Carbrain Road between the West and East roundabouts (similar to when Telford Town centre was rebuilt in recent years), but is not clear where bus stops or a bus station would be sited (I think near the East roundabout).
 

Statto

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Runcorn High Street bus station.

Roger French visited the Runcorn for one of his blogs recently, & was pretty scathing about Runcorn High Street bus station, & i agree with him it;s an abonimation of a bus station, here's his Runcorn blog with a bit on the bus station.

Just to note, that flag at the bus station he posts about & took a pic on, hasn't been updated since 2001

 

ElBoiii

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Castleton definitely. Just three services (but two are just combined) and two stands. There isn't even a designated stand for each service group, they just use which one is available.
 

WibbleWobble

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Don't understand this. The guided busway stops are more like tram stops than bus stops. While locals know that Astley Street is the stop for Tyldesley, anyone from outside the area might not know and would be looking for a stop with Tyldesley in the name.
If you were on the V2 (when it isn't running in shuttle mode), you wouldn't necessarily get on or off at the Astley Street stop if you were going to Tyldesley - it stops at the top of the hill in The Square.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Runcorn High Street bus station.

Roger French visited the Runcorn for one of his blogs recently, & was pretty scathing about Runcorn High Street bus station, & i agree with him it;s an abonimation of a bus station, here's his Runcorn blog with a bit on the bus station.

Just to note, that flag at the bus station he posts about & took a pic on, hasn't been updated since 2001

Yeah - had the pleasure of that last year. Bleak!
 

Bletchleyite

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Yeah - had the pleasure of that last year. Bleak!

The whole Busway is - that blog post highlights it. The Busway must lose custom because it looks so awful, and at night I bet it feels unsafe. It really needs a tidy-up plus a more tram-like approach to signage etc, like the guided busways have. It's so demeaning to the world's first bus rapid transit system.
 

markymark2000

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The whole Busway is - that blog post highlights it. The Busway must lose custom because it looks so awful, and at night I bet it feels unsafe. It really needs a tidy-up plus a more tram-like approach to signage etc, like the guided busways have. It's so demeaning to the world's first bus rapid transit system.
Fact is, Halton Council don't like buses and won't do anything that may encourage people to use them. I think the downfall of Halton Transport is pretty interesting too, a council let down its own bus company. (Rather interesting that Labour call for more control and yet a Labour led council let their own bus company turn out such a way).

The whole busway could be much better if someone in the council had a brain cell and could be bothered with it. Sadly, it's not in Halton Council's remit to do that. If they paid up the transport precept like they should and gave control of the busway over to Merseytravel, they would have it looking a damn sight better than it is. Treat others how you want to be treated kind of comes to mind and the attitude portrayed by Runcorn Council. They don't treat the infrastructure right, so no one else does.


The only improvements to the busway that have ever been made are being made to it now with some pavements being added to some areas so that the route can be used for active travel which is already being well used as it's much preferred over navigating the maze of unsafe subways, cut throughs and general spaghetti of paths which exist to link above, under and around the busway.
 

Teflon988

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Evesham Bus Station

Roger French makes reference to this in one of his many blogs.

 

robertclark125

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The Blackpool coach station, on Central Drive, on the site of the old Blackpool South railway station, is or was, a few shelters. When catch 22 bus, or whatever they were called back then, ran a service from Blackpool to Manchester using bendi buses, this was the Blackpool end of the route.

Washington, Tyne and Wear, has two bus stations. There's the one in the town centre, at The Galleries, and one in the North, at Concord. The latter may seem underwhelming at first, three rows of lanes and shelters. But, remember its not in the town centre, and so perhaps is appropriate to the area.
 

Ken H

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Evesham Bus Station

Roger French makes reference to this in one of his many blogs.

What a change in Evesham. Used to have a decent sized Midland Red West depot and most of the services were run by them.

But the dual carriageway on the A46 going north means Redditch and Stratford are so much quicker by car.
The Redditch bus no longer goes to Birminghan. But the sane thing to do is to get the train from Redditch.
And why run to Tewkesbury and not the far more important Cheltenham?

Do the Stratford and Redditch buses still meet at Bidford so you can do Littleton - Stratford easily?

Left S Warks in 2017. Must be so different now.
 

markymark2000

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And why run to Tewkesbury and not the far more important Cheltenham?
Because of a simple thing called County Borders.

The Tewkesbury to Evesham bus is funded by Worcestershire Council and Tewkesbury is just over the border and the route covers through the villages and basically links them to the closest town to the border. A bus to Cheltenham would require an operator to do that commercially and sadly Stagecoach don't want to try it which is a shame as they would have the best opportunity for it by extending the Stratford-Evesham 28 down to Cheltenham. If done relatively fast, it could be done faster than the train (which is currently Stratford-Birmingham-Cheltenham)

The other operators around Evesham and Cheltenham are only after tenders and don't really give a stuff about commercial services. You can probably add to that Worcestershire and Gloucestershire aren't exactly innovative or really pro bus and so the chance of them working together to get a significantly improved service I feel is rather unlikely.


I do think that there is good potential though for a Cheltenham to Evesham bus. Just no one will do it.
 

padbus

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Because of a simple thing called County Borders.

The Tewkesbury to Evesham bus is funded by Worcestershire Council and Tewkesbury is just over the border and the route covers through the villages and basically links them to the closest town to the border. A bus to Cheltenham would require an operator to do that commercially and sadly Stagecoach don't want to try it which is a shame as they would have the best opportunity for it by extending the Stratford-Evesham 28 down to Cheltenham. If done relatively fast, it could be done faster than the train (which is currently Stratford-Birmingham-Cheltenham)

The other operators around Evesham and Cheltenham are only after tenders and don't really give a stuff about commercial services. You can probably add to that Worcestershire and Gloucestershire aren't exactly innovative or really pro bus and so the chance of them working together to get a significantly improved service I feel is rather unlikely.


I do think that there is good potential though for a Cheltenham to Evesham bus. Just no one will do it.
There used to be a Cheltenham to Evesham service run jointly by Bristol Omnibus and (for some reason) Stratford Blue using double deckers. It did meander a bit, though. I remember travelling on it to visit my grandparents in Kemerton which is cetainly not on a direct route.
 

JD2168

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The Blackpool coach station, on Central Drive, on the site of the old Blackpool South railway station, is or was, a few shelters. When catch 22 bus, or whatever they were called back then, ran a service from Blackpool to Manchester using bendi buses, this was the Blackpool end of the route.

Washington, Tyne and Wear, has two bus stations. There's the one in the town centre, at The Galleries, and one in the North, at Concord. The latter may seem underwhelming at first, three rows of lanes and shelters. But, remember its not in the town centre, and so perhaps is appropriate to the area.
With regards Blackpool the worst I have found is the one near the Football Ground where most day trip coaches park. It is round the back of Blackpool Transport bus depot. Very damaged roof on the building, main toilet blocks locked up causing everyone to use the Pay loos at the side, not helped by one of the main car parks in this location as well & a shop that closed a few years ago. Just very run down & paints a poor first image for visitors.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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To be honest, it depends on why a bus station is underwhelming. For me, I don't find bus stations like Evesham or Monmouth or Cinderford underwhelming - these are very small market towns. The bus stations might be pathetic but that they actually have one is perhaps a surprise in itself. So I'm not underwhelmed as I really have low expectations for places like these.

Instead, I think it's more about the difference between expectation and reality. Of course, you have many places that now have no actual bus station when they really should have something (thinking of places like Salisbury) and even the new Interchange in Weston super Mare is really just a load of new bus shelters on a road. No facilities though the real time train timetable display is actually good.

Now yesterday had a really good example of an underwhelming bus station. I went to Dewsbury (and yes, there are plans to improve it) but it is the epitome of underwhelming. Firstly, it's actually oversized in terms of the footprint (the miserable coach stand which is a remnant of the old bus station) and the huge waiting areas. Then you have the closed travel centre, empty retail units - it is just depressing.


What a change in Evesham. Used to have a decent sized Midland Red West depot and most of the services were run by them.

And why run to Tewkesbury and not the far more important Cheltenham?
Services in Evesham were massively cut in the late 1970s when the very first Viable Network Projects were done by the National Bus Company when they realised that with no Birmingham/Black Country services, Midland Red was losing a huge amount of money. The depot was subdivided, the bigger half leased to a dairy for garaging milkfloats, and the depot reduced to about 12 vehicles.

In First days, it had a slight resurgence when they won some tenders in the Stratford area. Otherwise, it was reliant on two routes (to Redditch and to Worcester) plus a few tendered scraps to places like Broadway and Long Lartin.
Because of a simple thing called County Borders.

The Tewkesbury to Evesham bus is funded by Worcestershire Council and Tewkesbury is just over the border and the route covers through the villages and basically links them to the closest town to the border. A bus to Cheltenham would require an operator to do that commercially and sadly Stagecoach don't want to try it which is a shame as they would have the best opportunity for it by extending the Stratford-Evesham 28 down to Cheltenham. If done relatively fast, it could be done faster than the train (which is currently Stratford-Birmingham-Cheltenham)

The other operators around Evesham and Cheltenham are only after tenders and don't really give a stuff about commercial services. You can probably add to that Worcestershire and Gloucestershire aren't exactly innovative or really pro bus and so the chance of them working together to get a significantly improved service I feel is rather unlikely.


I do think that there is good potential though for a Cheltenham to Evesham bus. Just no one will do it.
County borders have nothing to do with it. As well as the 540 Evesham to Tewkesbury, Boomerang Bus Co ran the tendered 545 from Evesham to Cheltenham until they closed down c.2004, running from Evesham via Kemerton and then through the crossroads at Ashchurch Depot and to Cheltenham from there so it has been tried before. After that, the 540 was also extended from Tewkesbury to Cheltenham in the Veolia (Astons) days, so on top of the former Bristol Omnibus, that's three times see link https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/r...heltenham-tewkesbury-bredon-ashton-under-hill

Problem is that the A46/A435 is pretty quick into Cheltenham; you can do it in not much more than 30 mins. You have to divert to serve the villages like Ashton and Sedgebarrow as if you run a direct service down the A46, there just aren't many villages between Evesham and Teddington Hands - only Beckford. Then nothing until you reach Bishop's Cleeve and then you have frequent local services. So a fast route simply doesn't have many places to pick up at - the A46 is a weird road in that respect

The 540 does that job of serving places like Sedgebarrow but it also has to serve Kemerton and Conderton and then into Bredon - it would seem perverse if it got that close to Tewkesbury and then DIDN'T go there. When the council cuts came to Worcestershire in the early 2000s (they aren't a great council for supporting buses), the 545 was both less busy, less resource intensive and so easier to cut. Think you're a bit harsh on Gloucestershire CC - they have generally supported services and been decent if somewhat staid.

Also, whilst I agree on the quality of local operators like LMS, and even Cresswells, I will also support Stagecoach (or at least of old). They did develop the 28 to provide a clockface timetable and earlier/Sunday journeys, the 71 Tewkesbury to Gloucester was a mishmash of Swanbrook journeys til they won the tender and developed that route (some s.106 funding?) whilst the 41 Tewkesbury to Cheltenham was half hourly and they developed that off the back of Kickstart funding.

Probably best leave it there before the mods feel they need to intervene.

There used to be a Cheltenham to Evesham service run jointly by Bristol Omnibus and (for some reason) Stratford Blue using double deckers. It did meander a bit, though. I remember travelling on it to visit my grandparents in Kemerton which is cetainly not on a direct route.
 

markymark2000

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County borders have nothing to do with it. As well as the 540 Evesham to Tewkesbury, Boomerang Bus Co ran the tendered 545 from Evesham to Cheltenham until they closed down c.2004, running from Evesham via Kemerton and then through the crossroads at Ashchurch Depot and to Cheltenham from there so it has been tried before.
Enforcing county borders changed often within councils and so you can't say 'no it's not a reason', it is a reason. As budgets got tighter and council staff and councillors change, as does the tendered bus network and how far it reaches. Some councils which historically worked we together now don't and enforce county borders.

As the world has changed since 2004, i don't think it's really wise to compare current bus viability to that of 2004. Some buses which wouldn't have been viable back then are now more viable and routes which were booming back then, not carry only a handful of passengers. There's a lot of variables.

Flintshire and Wrexham and Flintshire and Cheshire West had worked together well until a few years ago and budgets for tight and Flintshire decided to go it alone and they single handedly messed up the bus network and cut cross border services back significantly. (To give a relevant example of significant cuts and enforcing county borders)


Think you're a bit harsh on Gloucestershire CC - they have generally supported services and been decent if somewhat staid.
They're not awful but they're not the best either. Bit of a mix depending on the area. Not overly innovative though, more seeming to keep doing the same thing and hoping for a different result.

It's a whole different topic though as you say to go into details.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Enforcing county borders changed often within councils and so you can't say 'no it's not a reason', it is a reason. As budgets got tighter and council staff and councillors change, as does the tendered bus network and how far it reaches. Some councils which historically worked we together now don't and enforce county borders.
It IS a reason in certain instances - the most ridiculous being the Wells to Weston service being truncated at Axbridge. However, in this specific instance, the reason the 540 runs to Tewkesbury rather than Cheltenham, is not because of borders.
 

robertclark125

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The old Anderston bus station in Glasgow, closed in the mid 1990s, was a bit underwhelming, in terms of how it was covered by office blocks. A bit like Edinburgh was, but without the subways.

When it first opened in 1981, Gateshead was underwhelming. Not now.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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The old Anderston bus station in Glasgow, closed in the mid 1990s, was a bit underwhelming, in terms of how it was covered by office blocks. A bit like Edinburgh was, but without the subways.
I never had the pleasure of Anderston (but did at St Andrews Square) and underwhelming isn't the word I've heard used to describe it!!

One Scottish one that is underwhelming is Perth. However, I actually really like the fact that it's some sort of timewarp where you can expect a Y type to appear at any moment.
 

GusB

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I never had the pleasure of Anderston (but did at St Andrews Square) and underwhelming isn't the word I've heard used to describe it!!

One Scottish one that is underwhelming is Perth. However, I actually really like the fact that it's some sort of timewarp where you can expect a Y type to appear at any moment.
I haven't been to Perth bus station in years, but when I was a regular traveller between Aberdeen/Inverness and Glasgow/Edinburgh it was quite a busy place. I frequently had to change at Perth and there was often a bit of a wait before the connection arrived (usually the ex-Inverness coach for Edinburgh). I fondly remember wondering what rattler would turn up from Inverness and whether or not it would be a white-knuckle ride down the M90 to Edinburgh (speed limiter optional - allegedly)!

There was a handy shop for buying refreshments and toilet facilities if required, a phone box for calling ahead to advise of the inevitable delay, and the steady trickle of local traffic too, much of which was still run by Y-types. There were also couple of "characterful" inspectors who kept a watchful eye on proceedings.

Of course, that experience was lost when the express services were routed via Broxden.
 

py_megapixel

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Has anyone mentioned Piccadilly Gardens yet?

TfGM have some very nice bus stations across the Greater Manchester area, but what is generally considered the "main" one in the city centre - at least for buses coming from the south - is just a couple of rows of shelters and a vandalised Sanisette crammed into the corner of a rather uninspiring public square.

There's certainly no live information - I don't think there's even a "Which stand does my bus use" poster. It might be the largest bus station in the country to lack those features.
 

Simon75

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Has anyone mentioned Piccadilly Gardens yet?

TfGM have some very nice bus stations across the Greater Manchester area, but what is generally considered the "main" one in the city centre - at least for buses coming from the south - is just a couple of rows of shelters and a vandalised Sanisette crammed into the corner of a rather uninspiring public square.

There's certainly no live information - I don't think there's even a "Which stand does my bus use" poster. It might be the largest bus station in the country to lack those features.
And Piccadilly is pretty much unchanged for the last 30 odd years

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==

To be honest, it depends on why a bus station is underwhelming. For me, I don't find bus stations like Evesham or Monmouth or Cinderford underwhelming - these are very small market towns. The bus stations might be pathetic but that they actually have one is perhaps a surprise in itself. So I'm not underwhelmed as I really have low expectations for places like these.

Instead, I think it's more about the difference between expectation and reality. Of course, you have many places that now have no actual bus station when they really should have something (thinking of places like Salisbury) and even the new Interchange in Weston super Mare is really just a load of new bus shelters on a road. No facilities though the real time train
Totally agree, I regularly use Congleton bus station (Fairground), 3 bus shelters in a bus station, but adequate for a small town

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