Michaelmas Fair in St Ives

This year, for the first time, bus traffic in St Ives was not plunged into chaos by the  Michaelmas Fair.

The Fair takes over the main market square in St Ives and in past years the regular Monday Market has been moved out onto the bus station. As a result buses have had to use a very inadequate bus stop in The Quadrant, with all the ensuing inconvenience for bus passengers, gridlock and delays.

This year was different. The Monday Market (well, a small remnant of it) could be found in a corner of the car park between the bus station and Waitrose.

And buses were running as normal, via the bus station and Station Road.

Michaelmas Fair chaos at St Ives

Once again the centre of St Ives is subject to traffic chaos due to the lack of joined up thinking as regards the Monday Market and the Michaelmas Fair.

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.

Busway in this week's Hunts Post

Nothing as far as I can see about the new bus timetable and the extensions of services to Peterborough, Hinchingbrooke, Wyton Camp and Burley Road. But there is a letter from  Needingworth resident about the chaos at St Ives Bus station on Monday morning. The writer comments that there were no new timetables on dispaly, and only one Stagecoach employee on hand to redirect passengers to the new stop in Station road. In Station Road, traffic congestion built up on two occasions due to a lorry unloading at Petzone and  an ambulance parked opposite the bus stop. Also noted is that lack of a waiting shelter, and a concern that large numbers of waiting passengers could block the pavement . Hunts Post (25 July, page 6)

St Ives bank holiday market

Once again, St Ives Bus Station is full of market stalls, so buses are having to run from The Quadrant. Fortunately only a Sunday bus service is running today, so congestion at The Quadrant shouldn't be too much of an issue. As with the early May Bank Holiday, Station Road there are no stalls in Station Road.

St Ives Bank Holiday Market

I am constantly amazed at the lack of joined up thinking when it comes to Bank Holiday Markets, and the Michaelmas Fair, in St Ives. Market stalls fill the bus station, which is closed to buses for the duration of the market. And so it was today. Buses coming off the busway are diverted from the Park & Ride via Meadow Lane and have been calling at the stop in The Quadrant. There seems to be no published information about this diversion - no notices displayed the the bus station, and nothing, as far as I could see, on the Stagecoach or Busway websites. Huntingdonshire District Council put up notices at either end of The Quadrant to say that the parking bays were out of use during the Bank Holiday Market (presumably to create space for the buses) but the anarchic motorists of St Ives were ignoring the notices. The District Council also put up a notice in Station Road forbidding market traders from setting up the stalls in that road. This meant that guided buses could have used Station Road as normal, and the Meadow Lane diversion was strictly speaking unnecessary. Today, the Bank Holiday Market was a lot smaller than usual (blame the weather) so the usual level of inconvenience for the travelling public was not reached.