Thursday 30 January 2014

Stagecoach busway timetable changes - 23 February 2014

Information about the timetable changes for Stagecoach services on the busway can now be viewed here.

In brief the changes are as follows:


Buses will now operate up to every five minutes between St Ives and Central Cambridge between 0700 and 0900 Mondays to Fridays.
Buses will also return up to every 5 minutes between Central Cambridge and St Ives between 1600 and 1800 Mondays to Fridays.
More journeys will be operated by double deck vehicles during peak periods (between St Ives and Central Cambridge).
* Two new direct journeys on route A in the morning peak between Huntingdon bus station, St. Ives and Central Cambridge, returning from Central Cambridge in the evening peak.
New village commuter journeys between Brampton/Godmanchester and St Ives/Central Cambridge (see page 5 of the new timetable for details of times).

The new A/B timetable is here

Click here for the new busway network map.

There are also changes to route 45, which runs between St Ives, Huntingdon Rail Station and Hinchingbrooke Hospital at peak times.

Article in Cambridge News here.

Monday 27 January 2014

Busway User Questionnaire

Benedict Kennard is studying Geography with Transport Planning at The  

University of Leeds and has chosen to research the users of the
Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, for his dissertation topic.

He would very much appreciate it if any readers of this blog who are also busway users would complete the questionnaire.

If you would like any more information please feel
free to contact Benedict at: gy11bk@leeds.ac.uk.

Here is the link to the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway User Questionnaire :
https://www.esurveycreator.com/s/busway

Wednesday 22 January 2014

Flaming June Half Marathon

Another Half Marathon is scheduled to use part of the guided busway's cycle track - on Sunday 1 June.

It is being organised by The Friends of Histon & Impington Recreation Ground and it is intended that it will become an annual event.

A map of the route, which uses three section of the busway interspersed with country footpaths, can be viewed here.

Flaming June Half Marathon.

See article on Cambridge News website.



Sunday 19 January 2014

Stagecoach timetable changes from 24 February

You will look in vain for any announcements about this on either the Stagecoach or County Council websites - perhaps they don't think passengers are interested... - but Stagecoach are making changes to their Busway services from 24 February. If you go to the County Council timetables page and follow the relevant links, you'll be taken to the Traveline timetables where the new times are given.

I was going to attempt to summarise the changes, but the way the information is presented on Traveline makes this a bit difficult. Suffice to say that they're nearly all concerned with the weekday morning and evening rush hours (except for a new route between Wyton and St Ives on the A service), that the changes to the B services are very minor, but to A services they appear to be more substantial.. (Analysis isn't helped by the fact that the PDF versions of these timetables present the information in a quite different way from the online tables.) The best advice is to have a look for yourself!


Update 31 Jan - please see  my blog post dated 30 January for full details of the revised bus service here.

Saturday 18 January 2014

Swavesey Half Marathon

The Swavesey Half Marathon will be using part of the busway cycle track near Fen Drayton on Sunday 2 March 2014.
Details of the event, including a map of the route, can be found here.

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Cambridge/Swavesey-Half-Marathon-run-confirmed-for-second-year-20140115050018.htm

Friday 17 January 2014

Bus services serving the new Science Park rail station

Planning for the new Science Park rail station proceeds apace. And if recent developments at Cambridge and Peterborough are anything to go by, once construction has started it will be full steam ahead [sic].

The following train services are expected to serve the new station (with their daytime frequencies):
  • Kings Lynn-Kings Cross fast (hourly)
  • Science Park-Kings Cross semi-fast (hourly - currently terminates at Cambridge)
  • Cambridge-Norwich (hourly)

I've heard, via a reliable source, that Stagecoach's plans for its Busway services to serve the new station extend no further than "peak times". (In addition, they're planning to route the Citi 2 service via the station; and there will, at some point, be a service from the University's developments on the West and North West sides of the city, via the Darwin Green site.) So current thinking means Busway users outside peak times would have to walk from Milton Road to the new station.

To my mind that sounds excessively cautious, even before Northstowe comes on stream. Even though I live in the city, it's pretty clear to me that the Science Park station is likely to be attractive to communities served by the Busway between Histon and St Ives (although some St Ives' needs are perhaps served equally well by Huntingdon trains). It's not just for Chesterton residents and cyclists from the surrounding area!

Clearly there are costs involved in sending buses into the site and back out again, and if there are no passengers to pick up or set down that's a waste of money (and of other passengers' time, of course). So it's perhaps not as simple as saying that all of the "A" services should serve the new station. But "peak times" only? Surely not.

Views, anyone?




Wednesday 8 January 2014

Hazardous new footpath junction at Histon

The new housing development at Primrose Lane, Histon, has recently been linked to the busway cycle track by a short footpath which emerges onto the cycle track at a break in the 4-metre high solid fence. Sightlines, particularly in the Cambridge direction, are extremely poor. The cycle track is narrow at this point, so west-bound cyclists will have little warning of a pedestrian emerging from the footpath and turning right.

Until the design of this junction is improved, users of the cycle track should be extremely cautious when passing this place.