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| A bus stop. |
Most passengers have probably never given a thought as to where bus stops come from and who decides where they are positioned. In many cases the answer will be that bus stops are where they are because they have always been there, having been created in the very early days of bus travel. Only in relatively recent times has a central record of bus stops been created and before this even local councils had no record of where the bus stops were.
Things are a little more formal nowadays and bus companies are required to include a list of stopping places on a route when they register a bus service with the Traffic Commissioners. Each stop also has a unique identifier within the National Public Transport Access Node (NaPTAN) database, something that allows Traveline, Google Maps and others to include them on their maps together with the services that call there and the times that they do so.
Creating new stops is usually dealt with at a high level between bus companies and Lancashire County Council with ordinary passengers not getting much of a say, but recently the BUG has managed to extend its influence over bus matters in Lancaster to participating in the creation of new bus stops - hopefully to the advantage of local passengers.
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| The section of route where buses were not supposed to stop |
It began back in January when we received a request for assistance from our member County Councillor Gina Dowding who, together with City Councillors, had been asked by local people to help get a new bus stop established on Willow Lane, Marsh. Several years ago, service 11 to Marsh was re-routed to serve the Abraham Heights development, but few, if any, new stops appear to have been provided at that time, with nothing between Coolidge Avenue and the former Marsh terminus at Denmark Street, a distance of three-qaurters of a mile (1.2km).
Our assumption was that the "new" section of route must be being operated under "Hail and Ride" provisions, whereby buses can stop at any safe place to pick up and set down passengers away from main roads, but we were in some doubt as to how far along Willow Lane this would apply. Imagine our surprise, therefore, when we learnt from Stagecoach that NONE of the route of service 11 was registered as "hail and ride" and that legally buses should not stop between Coolidge Avenue and Denmark Street!
Fortunately, over the years drivers and passengers had taken a more common-sense approach and a series of unofficial stopping places had become established, where drivers expected passengers to wait and passengers expected buses to stop. This was all very well for regular users but not much good for new or would-be passengers, or new drivers for that matter. In any case the position had to be regularised so that buses were not stopping illegally and so that the official stopping points could be shown on Traveline, Google Maps and Stagecoach's own website.
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| "Let's put it over there...." (Westbourne Road) |
So a "bus stop site meeting" was called. Such events usually involve the bus company, the county council and perhaps local City councillors if they have been involved in the request. Bus passengers are not usually invited! The Bus Users Group was therefore very pleased to be asked to attend the meeting and to represent passengers -a first for this group and welcome recognition of our growing expertise in all matters relating to bus transport in Lancaster. Not only that, but on the day, as the County Council officer was unable to attend, we ended up conducting the meeting and producing the official minutes!
Of course, it helped that, unlike the other parties concerned, we had taken the trouble to go over the route in advance, timing our visit so that we could speak to waiting passengers along the route.
Stagecoach brought a bus and we visited each potential site in turn. In placing the stops we took account of convenience for passengers, ease of use by drivers, road safety and privacy and amenity concerns of householders. We ended up with proposed new stops on Westbourne Road, Leighton Drive and Willow Lane (two). When the county council had had the chance to look over our proposals it approved almost all of them, merely combining our proposed two stops on Leighton Drive to one on a different location. Ironically it is only this compromise site that seems to have attracted any opposition from a nearby householder.
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| The site of the new stop on Willow Lane |
Shortly afterwards, the County Council began the work of erecting new bus stop signs, including one for the established stop at Coolidge Avenue, which never seems to have had one!
The BUG is pleased to have been invited to contribute to the exercise and would like to thank Councillor Dowding and also new Marsh councillor Mandy Bannon for the invitation to help in the project. Also thanks to Stagecoach and Lancashire County Council for allowing us to get involved. As a precedent has now been established we will be happy to assist anyone else seeking to establish new stops that make things easier for the travelling public.
