The outbound A service will be unable to serve the Jesus Lane stop on Sunday 29th November, due to road works in Bridge St. The inbound service is already diverted, so is unaffected.
Although there's no information about this on the Stagecoach website, the usual diversion in this situation is via Victoria Avenue and Chesterton Lane, so that the Shire Hall stop can still be served.
Stagecoach have reported two attacks in recent days on Busway vehicles in the Trumpington area.
The first incident took place at Foster Road in the late afternoon of 17 October. Stagecoach report that children smashed a window. And just yesterday, at around the same time, a vehicle suffered two broken windows when it was the subject of criminal damage by what Stagecoach describe as "youths".
Fortunately, there were no injuries on either occasion, although the vehicles concerned had to be removed from service.
Stagecoach will be running a Sunday service on the forthcoming August Bank Holiday Monday. Nothing unusual in that, of course. But do remember that new timetables will be in operation. For the most part the changes to the Sunday timetable are only minor. But that's not the case if you use Cambridge North, live in Orchard Park, or are accustomed to using the Godmanchester services (you'd be better to consider the Whippet X3 in future for this last if you want to travel into Cambridge).
Whippet will also be running a Sunday service, with the U continuing to extend to/from the Biomedical Campus (but note that the Outpatients stop remains suspended).
Stagecoach have announced some major changes to Busway services from 30 August. Full details, all new/revised timetables, and a route map, are on the Stagecoach website. What follows is a summary.
There are two main changes:
Busway-fitted vehicles will, in future, operate only on the Busway, also between St Ives Park & Ride and either Marley Road or Hinchingbrooke Hospital, and - within Cambridge - between the two sections of the Busway. This means that Busway vehicles will no longer provide feeder services to the rural areas beyond St Ives or to Peterborough and Royston. Rural connections will be provided by new services V1-V4 (serving, respectively, Ramsey, Chatteris, Somersham and Boxworth), operating a similar service to the existing "through" workings, but requiring passengers to change at St Ives. Would-be passengers should note that Stagecoach do NOT guarantee these connections, which could be an issue for commuters heading home in the afternoon, as these are the last services of the day to these destinations. There's also a new service V5 providing a an early-morning service from Godmanchester and late-evening return journeys - but these will operate through from Cambridge (as a "B" as far as Hinchingbrooke Hospital), so no change of vehicle will be required. Peterborough will be served by service 904 from St Ives - this will operate via Houghton village, but otherwise follow the main road between St Ives and Huntingdon and not divert via the estates (which will continue to be served by route B). In a reversion to earlier practice, Royston will be served by a separate Royston/Cambridge service, the newly-established 915.
The A and B routes are being switched. In line with the revision originally planned for March (but not implemented at the time), the A will in future operate via Shire Hall (although, because of the Histon Road closure, Cambridge-bound journeys will travel via the Science Park for the next year or so). The B will serve Cambridge North station. The A (single-decker buses) will continue to serve the main Railway Station and the Biomedical Campus, whilst the B (double-deckers) terminates in Cambridge City Centre.
And, just to note, services D and R will cease completely from 30 August (the R has been suspended since the early days of the pandemic).
Finally, a reminder that maps and timetables, and more detailed explanations of the changes, are on the Stagecoach website
The Guided Busway between Histon and the junction close to Orchard Park West is now to remain closed until January. Stagecoach apologise for the disruption, and indeed it is bad news for most passengers on the traditional A & D routes, who have longer journey times as the buses divert through Orchard Park.Thanks to Barry for sharing his thoughts.
It’s also bad news for people wanting to go to most of Orchard Park in the evening; no buses go through the estate after 9pm and the stop on Histon Rd that the evening B services call at is a long walk from Orchard Park East. It's also unfortunate for anyone in Orchard Park wanting a direct bus all the way to Huntingdon or Peterborough.
Overall however, Orchard Park wins handsomely from this, and when things go back to normal the service we’ve enjoyed since the summer will be sorely missed. Not only has our rush hour service more than doubled from 4 buses an hour to 10 (even before you consider that the diverted B’s still aren’t that far from the Orchard Park West stop), but we now benefit from direct services to the Science Park, Cambridge North Station, Cambridge Station, Addenbrooke’s, Trumpington & beyond. I’ve used the bus more in the last 5 months than in the previous 5 years since I moved here, as the convenience of the bus now beats cycling to the stations!
Users of the B also benefit from a more direct journey into Cambridge (though they are a bit more at risk of congestion above J32 of the A14).
With the changes having become at least a medium term thing it’s a shame that the last three evening Bs weren’t rerouted via the Science Park so that they could have served Orchard Park too; I feel that more people would have benefited from it serving all the other stops north of the city centre instead of Jesus Lane and Shire Hall (and they might have found out that in fact more people than they think work late at the Science Park!!!). It might not have seemed worth arranging for the initial two weeks, but for six months (or maybe more???) it could have been.
Perhaps when services return to normal will also be a good time to look at the location of the Orchard Park East stop, which is located only a few yards round the corner from where it could have been served by more than twice as many buses.
