The main market square is mostly unavailable to the regular market, so the market stalls are in the bus station.
This means that buses which terminate or start from St Ives Bus Station are displaced to the bus stop in The Quadrant, where there is no space of buses to lay over between trips.
Cambridge-bound guided buses are using their regular stop in Station Road, but west-bound guided buses are having to divert via Meadow Lane, and loop round the Quadrant one way system twice.
As far as I can see there is no information about these diversions on the Stagecoach or Whippet websites, nor on the Busway website.
Sounds a pain but its only for 3 days? I was surprised about the Bus Station being closed today, but I guess it will open for business tomorrow?
ReplyDeleteIt should have reopened by mid afternoon when the market stalls pack up, but on my return trip (Stagecoach) arriving in St Ives about 17.40, the buses were still diverting via Meadow Lane. The driver said he'd not been told to return to the normal route. However, Whippet buses were using the bus station by that time.
ReplyDeleteIt is always a shambles each and every year, and the inability to display a clear notice or two always amazes me. It would damn well be signed clearly if it was central Cambridge.
ReplyDeleteI have fired off a few emails to the district councillors for St Ives, the county councillor for St Ives, St Ives Town Council and Stagecoach. Replies so far are sympathetic, though there is a sense of 'this is how it's always been'. The Michaelmas fair, after all, goes back 900 years. However, I'm also getting responses that suggest a discussion between the three councils might be possible so that a better solution for the Michaelmas Fair and Bank Holiday markets might be found.
ReplyDeleteThere is a fair generator truck parked right next to the Station Rd stop. It's making it quite scary to cycle around the buses as you can't see if anyone is coming in the other direction.
ReplyDeletePhil
The Fair is an 'ancient tradition' so obviously (!) it has to be exempt from the usual rules!! I wonder if they have permission to flout the parking rules. Why has nobody thought to restrict parking on the opposite side of the road? Another example of lack of joined up thinking.
ReplyDelete