Lancaster Bus Station Closed Again

 

STOP PRESS:  The repairs have been completed and the bus station is now fully open.

For the second time in six months half of Lancaster bus station has had to be closed due to problems under the concourse seemingly connected with the drainage system. The latest incident took place on Saturday when Stagecoach put out the following announcement.

Due to a collapsed manhole on Cable Street  which is at the exit of the Bus Station.

Highways have closed the road off as a result, we are operating the following:

LANCASTER BUS STATION STAND CLOSURE

 

With immediate effect, stands 1 through to 11 will be closed, until further notice.

 

From FIRST BUS, to 19:00, Monday to Saturday, the following will apply:

 

Services 1, 1A, and 100 will NOT serve Lancaster Bus Station in both directions, unless a driver changeover.

 

University bound services will serve Parliament Street, then the next stop will be George Street.

 

Morecambe and Heysham bound services will serve George Street, then the next stop will be Lancaster Sainsbury's.

 

Morecambe bound 40 and 41 services will NOT serve Lancaster Bus Station, unless a driver changeover.

 

Service 2X and 4 will use the bus stop on Chapel Street.

This is all it takes to close half the bus station

Buses can't enter the station due to the road closure.

The collapsed manhole actually takes up very little space and perhaps buses could, with care, get by, but the Highways Department has closed off Wood Street at its junction with Damside Street so that buses can't actually get into the bus station in the first place.

The Bus Users Group has been in touch with the county's Highways Department but all they have done is to confirm that the road is closed!  They have now been asked to find out from their contractor when the work will be done and the BUG will also use our contacts to try and get the work expedited.

Council Plan to Increase Traffic at Christmas

Free buses could bring Christmas shoppers to the city

 Lancaster City Council has announced a plan to encourage many more motorists to bring their cars into the city centre in the run up to Christmas. The proposal will apparently bring a "business boost" to the city whilst adding to congestion and pollution.

Councillor Jean Parr, Cabinet Member with responsibility for Planning and Placemaking said:

      "We have been offering free festive parking at our main car parks for some years now and this       festive season is no different. The aim is to encourage people to support local businesses and to shop in our town centres".

 Free parking will be available on Thursday evenings and Sundays from November 30th until Christmas Eve.

In previous years the Bus Users Group has attempted to get the council to match its offer to car drivers with a similar plan to give free bus travel to everyone in the District. We feel that this would provide a similar "business boost", without the associated congestion and pollution, whilst providing a choice to car drivers as to how they travel. It would also be a fairer scheme as everyone living on a bus route would benefit from it, whilst those without access to a bus service could still take advantage of the free parking.

The Council has always refused to contemplate free bus travel as it says that it "could not afford to provide it" whereas free car parking "costs us nothing".  The economic illiteracy of this approach should be obvious to everyone as giving away car parking spaces at a time of maximum demand for them has clear implications for council income. 

The Bus Users Group is disappointed that a council that has declared a climate emergency, has known air quality management issues in the city centre and has recently had to close its visitor information centres to save £250,000 can apparently afford to turn down income, whilst providing an incentive for shoppers to forsake bus services and use their cars instead.

Lancashire County Council has long had a reputation for a completely car-centric transport policy and its disappointing that Lancaster City Council is taking the same approach.

New Image for Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire

 

One of the buses that has the new livery 

Lancaster's local bus operator, Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire, is getting a new image. The company is rebranding as "Lonsdale Buses", with the fleet adopting a new green-and-white livery.

The company has come a long way from its roots and the changes reflect that. It is no longer based in Kirkby Lonsdale, with buses now operating from a base on White Lund Trading Estate. Although it still runs a small number of coaches, its main business is no longer coach hire, but the operation of a growing network of commercial and tendered local bus services.

The new fleetname

The choice of green as the main ingredient of the new colour scheme will distinguish the buses from those of Stagecoach, which since its own rebranding a couple of years ago has been using a colour scheme that from the front at least, which is what most passengers notice, looks remarkably similar to the current Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire livery.

The rebranding is expected to be a gradual process. Only two of the company's twenty or so service buses have received the new livery to date and there has been no change to the website. For the time being, therefore, we will continue to list the  company under its old name on our maps and timetables pages,

Improvements at the underpass

 

The underpass bus stops at the University

Students and others returning to Lancaster University next month will find big improvements to the main campus bus stops at the underpass after a major refurbishment was completed over the summer. The underpass, which functions as the University bus station is very busy during term time and so summer is the best time for such projects.  

• The refurbishment works undertaken include:
• clearance and repair of carriageway and pavement drainage 
• installation of a new dark red tarmac pavement and waiting area
• improved lighting, refreshed road markings 
• replacement of wall boarding and painting of underpass and stairwell walls
• as well as installation of new seating and noticeboards.  

The works also include University and Lancaster themed ‘welcome’ graphics adjacent to the waiting areas and seating.  This project builds upon the changes made in 2019, when the capacity of the underpass for both pedestrians and buses was significantly expanded through removal of the lay-by and widening of the pavement waiting area.   

 Whilst by its very nature the underpass can never be a particularly pleasant place to wait for a bus, the works have brought about an improvement and the Bus Users Group welcomes this investment in one of the busiest bus stops in the city It's just a shame that Lancaster bus station can't be given an upgrade as well.

A big step backwards for bus information

 

The Visitor Information Centre in Lancaster

The Visitor Information Centres (VICs) run by Lancaster City Council in Lancaster and Morecambe are closing  - or as the city council prefers to say: "going digital" -  from next Monday, 11th September.

This represents a serious setback in the availability of information about bus services (and, of course, many other aspects of the city's life).  The VICs were the only place where one could obtain information by speaking face-to-face with a real person and with staff who were very knowledgeable about the bus service and keen to help.

Pick up a timetable

Following the closure of the Travel Shop in the bus station in 2020, they were also the only places where one could guarantee being able to pick up a timetable leaflet for almost any bus service and the Bus Users' Group knows that the staff went to considerable efforts to maintain supplies of these, sometimes in the face of apathy and lack of help from the bus companies themselves.

The display of bus and train leaflets in Morecambe VIC in 2018

Options

So following the closures, what now are the options for obtaining bus information in Lancaster? 

Pick up a timetable

Following pressure from the Bus Users' Group, Stagecoach has agreed to provide a leaflet rack at Lancaster bus station, to be positioned outside the former Travel Shop, where the inspectors can keep an eye on it.

Stagecoach's leaflet display at the bus station

Despite the fact that bus operators now supposedly work together with each other and the county council as part of an "Enhanced Partnership", the display contains only leaflets for Stagecoach services (give-or-take the occasional Bus Users Group leaflet than somehow sneaks in!) and indeed it is of such a design that it is unsuitable for the "A4 folded to A5" leaflets that the county council produces for supported services run by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire to not insignificant destinations such as Knott End or Skipton and which have been available in the VICs.

 It also has to be said that the rack is not always in place, but whether this is because someone forgets to put it out or whether its because they have run out of leaflets  is unknown.

At one time Lancaster library was another reliable source of leaflets, but recent visits have shown only a handful of seemingly random leaflets on display and certainly none for any recent changes to services.

The Internet

There is, of course, the internet. Not everyone is comfortable with that or even capable of using it, but even those who are are likely to experience difficulty at times. Computers are only as good as the information fed into them and our recent post on publicity for services 88 and 89 to Knott End explains what can - and what has - gone wrong.  Even when everything is working you won't find anything about Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire services on Stagecoach's website - or vice versa - whilst the County Council's timetables are buried deeply within a huge council-wide website that is not the easiest to navigate.  Yiur best bets are therefore Traveline or Google Maps.

The telephone

If you still want to speak to someone in person, you could always try the telephone. Stagecoach offer a telephone enquiry service for local buses based in, er..., Perth (we think that's Perth in Scotland, not Australia, but you never know)

Stagecoach's call centre for Lancaster bus enquiries - in Perth!

The Bus Users' Group has no doubt that the staff in Perth do a good job of answering questions about Lancaster's buses - as long as they are asked in such a way that they can find the answer on their computers and that enquierers don't use too many local names for places that the computer knows only by their "official" ones.  We know from experience however, that if you ask them about something that they can't find online themselves  - and which requires up-to-date, local knowledge - they can't really help.

Our other operator, Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire, will have that detailed local knowledge and will be able to tell you just about everything you need to know about the company's buses - but of course they won't be able to tell you anything about Stagecoach services.

  

The City Council suggests you use its special website to find out everything that the VICs will no longer to able to help you with. It's called www.visitlancaster.org.uk and we gave it a try to see how easy it will be to find out about buses after the VICs close.

Assuming you can work out under which of the subject headings bus information is likely to fall...

It actually comes under "visitor information" , which local people may not feel appropriate, but there you will find a section called "Getting Here" (even if what you are actually trying to do is to find a bus to get somewhere else). This then tells you:

Basically it says, "don't bother us...go and ask someone else".  The information on how to get here by car takes up three times as much space and even details on how to get to Lancaster "by air" (via Manchester or Liverpool airports if you were wondering) takes up just as much room.

Digital Screens

The Council says that the services of these specially trained staff at the VICs will be replaced by a number of "digital screens", of which we can only say that we hope they work better than the one at Lancaster railway station, which has been unable to display bus service information ever since it was installed

The seemingly permanent "connection problem" that results
 in a lack of bus information at the railway station

We understand that closing the VICs will save the council £250,000 a year or 0.8% of its £20M+ budget. A classic case of decisions made by people who know the price of everything but the value of nothing!

Why does the bus industry find it so difficult?

 

Service 89 to Knott End - or is it Service 88?

Why does the bus industry (and in this instance, the county council) find it so difficult to advertise and promote its services, or even to inform its passengers of what is going on?

From today, Sunday, 27th August, Lancashire County Council, working with Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire, has amended and improved the bus service between Lancaster and Knott End-on-Sea, increasing the the number of journeys, changing the route to provide new services to a number of villages and re-introducing a Sunday service after a seven year gap; all of this being paid for out of a pot of over £34m Bus Service Improvement Plan funding.

You would think that the council and the bus company would be falling over themselves to promote the new timetables, especially given that one of the aims of the Bus Service Improvement Plan is to increase the use of buses over that of other modes of transport,

But what do we find and how might passengers find out about the new service?

Try the Bus Company

Most passengers, or would-be passengers, seeking information on a bus service would naturally turn to the bus company's website, where they might expect to find a copy of the new timetable, perhaps with some promotional material explaining the benefits of the new service and how it might be of use to them.

The service between Lancaster and Knott End is numbered 89 and this has a new timetable, whereas the extra journeys to places such as Winmarleigh, Garstang, and Nateby are numbered 88. Nevertheless, the two routes have a lot in common and many, if not most, passengers could make use of either route.

 So what would such a passenger have found today on the website of Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire?

The 89 is there (third row from the top) but there is no mention of new service 88 (which started today) and clicking on the link to the 89 brings up the old timetable that finished yesterday! No point in looking any further.

Try the Council

People in the know, which is by no means everyone, might realise that the services are operated under contract to Lancashire County Council and might therefore turn to that body's website for information.

Should they eventually navigate their way through that necessarily huge website to the public transport pages they would find a section headed "Bus Timetables" and a search box to find the service they need.

IF our would-be passenger is already aware of new service 88, perhaps by reading the local press or, indeed, this website, they might enter "88" into the search box, only to get the following result.

Four services to choose from, none of them the 88

If our passenger doesn't give up at this stage they might notice that there is a "search by location" facility, but should they be wishing to travel to or from Cockerham for example, just one of the communities served by the 88 and 89, they would find:

Cockerham, apparently, doesn't exist! But it's not just Cockerham. Searches for "Glasson", "Garstang" "Knott End on Sea" and even "Lancaster" throw up the same result!

Clearly something seriously amiss with LCC's website there.

Success (sort of)

After much searching, the Bus Users' Group eventually tracked down an online timetable for the 88. It's actually quite simple>  After finding your way to "Roads, Parking and Travel", then "Public Transport" then "Bus Timetables" you just need to go to "Interchanges and Bus Stations" then click on "Lancaster Bus Station" where you will find a link to the new 88 timetable!  

SIMPLES!

(although we don't seem to hear much from Sergei the (Russian?) meerkat these days for some reason).

But even then your troubles are not over. The county's inflexible system insists on showing the 88 and the 89 as completely separate services with no cross-referencing between them on its site, so to get the full picture of buses between Lancaster and Knott End, or even Lancaster and Glasson or Lancaster and Cockerham you have to know that there are two separate services and then make two separate enquiries!

Paper Timetables?

But not everyone relies on the internet, so how might those who still prefer the traditional ways of finding bus information be getting on?

Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire appears to have given up producing paper timetables. All its passengers are obviously completely tech-savvy and wouldn't dream of reading anything the company might produce on paper. (They obviously don't read newspapers, TV listing magazines, tourist brochures, or any of the promotional literature from supermarkets, fast-food outlets and charities that regularly drops through their letterboxes either).

The county council, to its credit, does still produce information on printed leaflets, albeit only for services operated under contract to it. We understand there is a new leaflet for the 88/89, but there were no copies to be had in Lancaster library by Saturday afternoon (usually a reliable source for county council leaflets), whilst  passengers on two of the first journeys on the 88 this morning reported that none were available on the buses either. They are, however, available at the Visitor Information Centre at The Storey in Lancaster, at least until it closes the week after next!

They also reported that despite the Sunday journeys being numbered "88" the buses were showing "89"! It sometimes seems that the bus industry deliberately sets out to confuse its customers!

Some Praise!

The Bus Users' Group is quick to criticise (we take it as part of our role), but we will also give credit where credit is due, so "well done" to the County Council for at least updating the roadside departure lists along the route in advance of the change, even if the addition of an "88" to the bus stop flag in Common Garden Street will apparently have to wait until all the other timetable changes in the county have been dealt with.

Plenty of Notice

In case you were thinking that the change was brought in at short notice and that that might be the reason for the lack of information, the Bus Users' Group obtained a copy of the new timetables in mid-July, over a month before they came into effect and they have been on our website since then - still, apparently, the only place on the web where one can find the full service between Lancaster and Knott End on one single page. If you haven't already found them,  Click here

Bus Service Improvement Plans and the so-called "Enhanced Partnerships" between bus companies and local councils are supposed to usher in a new era of public transport, making it more attractive and helping to entice motorists out of their cars and on the buses. Sadly, it's hard to see how that will happen whilst it is still so difficult to find out when and where the buses run.

Buses diverted in Warton for two weeks

 Passengers to and from Warton face disruption for two weeks in August following a road closure in the village.  A notice on Stagecoach's website explains:

From 09:00 on Tuesday 15th August, to 17:00 on Wednesday 30th August (Or until completion of the works within this period) Warton, Main Street, between Borwick Lane and Sand Lane,will be closed for Utility works to be carried out.

During the works, Service 51 will proceed from Carnforth (Haws Hill) then will divert via Market Street, Scotland Road, A6, and Borwick Lane to continue the normal route to Silverdale in both directions

Service 49 will terminate at Carnforth

For Service 51,Customers are advised to use the bus stops in Carnforth (Haws Hill) or Warton (Borwick Lane End)

The map shows the current route, that will not be served, in black and the replacement route in orange.

The section of route between Carnforth and Warton, Borwick Lane via Millhead will not be served, with buses following the diversionary route via the A6 (The numbers in boxes have no significance).

Presumably, the return journey on Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire service 550 (Morecambe - Levens) will also be affected.

Please note that as stated on Stagecoach's website the diversion may be lifted at an earlier date if the work is completed.