Actually : 1B, 6, 7, 10 and 37
fbb's Island Jolly (dateline Weds 14 Oct) involved an in depth exploration of "Town services" in Ryde, Newport and Cowes.
Historically, Ryde had FOUR town services. But, sadly due to pressures of other stuff, fbb did not have time to don hard hat, Davey lamp and pick axe to excavate the coal measures at fbb mansions, thus to unearth some old Southern Vectic timetable books.
But using the above map, fbb can extricate, extrapolate and explicate.
Reading from West to East we meet occasional route 1B.
This ran along the main road past Binstead Post Office, turned left onto Newnham Road and reversed at the wiggle on the map above, lower left. Later it penetrative the expanding estate and wiggled around Verwood Drive ...
... as route 10 every 30 min. The buses below were on duty for an enthusiasts' running day and the blind settings are spurious!
Moving East a new development accessed via Wellington Road ...
... took the name of Pell Estate. It's route 6 ran every 30 min.
Next comes Haylands.
This may well be the original Ryde town service. Route 7 ...
... ran every 30 minutes with an hourly cross-town trip to Seaview (fbbs former home). The Haylands area was one of the oldest "suburb" communities for Ryde ...
... as can be gleaned from the age of the properties on Bettesworth Road.
To the South East of Ryde town centre was the Elmfield estate, well within fbb's oft dodgy memory. The main block of 1930s Council housing ...
... was served by route 20. Also in the mix were grander villas (now mainly flats) ...
... and some older housing.
Frequent route 16 and route 8 skirted the estate, but the local 20 managed a bus every 30 minutes.
At least it did until Southern Vectis reduced it to a 'one bus in steam' every 40 min.
Several things happened to bring about a major and positive change to the Ryde locals.
The National Bus Company minibus revolution happened; a new road linking Binstead (10) and Pell (6) was built ...
... and a big Tesco was opened on the main road south.
Obviously, Vectis joined everything together with a
ten minute frequency "bread van" service 6 ...
... running from Binstead via Pell, Ryde Town Centre, Ryde bus station, Oakfield and Elmfield to Tesco. The extra frequency was popular but the buses were very much not, providing barely enough for ample posteriors and no room for shopping bags.
The frequency was soon reduced to every 15 and Iveco minibuses replaced the bread vans with a further frequency cut back..
Route 7 to Haylands remained untouched. So, at its peak, we had a much high frequency service to the newer estates and the 30 minute headway to Haylands.
And Now, What?A rambling circular 37 runs every hour ...
... from the bus station to Haylands, on to Upton, them through open country ...
... round the back way to Binstead and back via Pell. The route carries very few passengers because it is appallingly inconvenient wherever in the circuit you live.
There is a stop at the junction seen in the distance in the above picture ...
... from which, until very recently, you would walk a goodly distance to reach the village of Havenstreet.
This community is now served by the reinstating of route 33, with a paltry three journeys on schooldays, five during school holidays and at weekends.
fbb and chum Alan (our senior Island correspondent) caught the 33 at Ryde bus station departin 1010.
The bus was once in the Vectis Blue school bus fleet ...
... a scheme soon abandoned
Whilst waiting, fbb noted that the shelter publicity had been updated ...
... but the bus stop flag hadn't!
A hand full of passengers boarded in Ryde, but the majority of the very encouraging load of 20 (!) Joined in the Haylands area and alighted in Newport. Without the 33, they would have needed a long way round trip on the 37 to Ryde and a change of bus.
No one boarded in Havenstreet but two alighed at the White Hart ...
... the venue for lunch on the Tuesday! Two alighted at the Steam Railway.
Otherwise the mass exodus was in Newport.
And what of Elmfield?The 8 and 3 do what buses have always done, passing by on the main roads, but less frequently than of yore. Elmfield and Oakfield get a half hourly route 2 ...
... on the edge of the housing, similar to the good old route 20! But nothing penetrative the heart of the estate.
So What?
Whilst interurban services (9 Ryde to Newport every 10 min : 2/3 Ryde to Shanklin every 15) have held up reasonably well, of services to areas of the town where, for man locals, travelling is only by bus, very little is left.
This MAY be the way to run a profitable bus company, but it is NOT the way to encourage mobility, community, local shopping etc and to discourage lonely isolation. It is also a good way to encourage more cars on to the Island's narrow local roads. Not to mention increased pollution, accidents and driver stress.
Tomorrow we go to Cowes.
Next Town Services blog : Tues 20 Oct
... often with scary levels of disorientation!
The bus terminal later moved West to the busier part of the town centre, consisting of a small turning circle and three stands outside the new Co-op.
The Co-op was later refurbished ...
... and is now an M & S Food Hall; much more appropriate for the Cowes trendies.
The shop was built on the site of Cowes railway station ...
... which fbb visited in a cold, dark and windy afternoon in January 1964, some years before closure.
It was utterly dismal.
... by then part of Southern Vectis. Don't tell anyone, but the above pictures was snapped at Yarmouth, not Cowes.
... and moved on to quieter catamaran boats, driven by a powerful water jet impeller.
Residents await with eager and extended anticipation the announced new-build.
Later car ferries ceased to call at Cowes leaving the 'Pontoon' as the terminal for the fast boats.
