Not impressed?

In the Hunts Post this week (21 December, page 6) is a letter from a Huntingdon resident whose journey to Addenbrooke's is slower that it used to be before the busway started running. He also notes that the Whippet 1A often reaches Cambridge before the Busway service, and that the so-called 'fast' buses from Huntingdon, introduced in October do not live up to expectations.

Today I travelled from St Ives to Cambridge on the 0735 Service B. The 1A left simultaneously with the B, and arrived in Cambridge ahead of the B. OK, the traffic is unusually light in the run-up to Christmas.  In fact, the 1A often beats the Busway service, even on journeys at peak hours such as the 17.10 Whippet departure from Drummer Street.

The Huntingdon to Cambridge bus service is good on frequency, but poor on speed.

A problem the bus companies need to address is how to provide a fast service between Huntingdon and Cambridge that doesn't go all round St Ives. Would an Oxmoor-Huntingdon-Godmanchester-Cambridge route via the A428 be quicker thatn the busway?

Sunday evening buses

I discovered at the weekend that there are now no evening buses between Cambridge, St Ives and Huntingdon. Whippet's service 1A used to run  in the evening, with final departures from Huntingdon at 21.00 and Cambridge 22.05. But this was axed a few months ago when Cambridgeshire County Council withdrew bus service subsidies in the recent financial cuts.

But, the timetable display boards at St Ives Bus Station are still displaying Sunday evening departure times for Whippet buses.

How is it that we have spent millions on providing a busway, with  an intensive service during Sunday morning and afternoon - but nothing at all in the evening?

Letters about the busway in the Hunts Post

Three letters about the busway in this week's Hunts Post ( 31 August 2011, page 7). First, malfunctioning ticket machines, and a driver unable to give refunds for money lost in a machine that did not issue a ticket. And in the same letter, a comment about drivers sounding the horn as a warning to people using footpath crossings along the route - apparently it is optional, rather than mandatory, and the letter writer is rightly concerned about this hazard as the evenings get darker. My point, in an earlier posting, about bus diversions to make way for the Bank Holiday Market is raised by the owners of a business in Station Road, St Ives. Their concern is to impress on Hunts District Council, that, if the town is to attract visitors using the busway, they need to be dropped off and picked up in the town centre at the bus station. Failure to ensure this may result in 'destruction of retail trade in St Ives'. Finally, a comment about the County Council's claims that the busway would be 'reliable, fast and frequent', and especially that the timings are now slower that the old service 55 via the A14. The writer has noticed, as I have, that the Whippet 1A is often quicker on its old route than the guided buses. And what has happened to the promised extension of the service to Hinchingbrooke Hospital, which helped to justify building the Huntingdon contraflow bus lane?