Bus Station Frustration [2]

Milton Keynes was designed for the motor car.

In the early days, as the City was developing, the authorities actually advised all newcomers to "get a car"! This from a Wikitravel page on the internet, even today:-

Travelling by car is usually preferable as one of Milton Keynes's saving graces is its road network, although during rush hour, it can get somewhat congested in some areas. The dominance of the car is greatly helped by the road layout - the main roads of the city are laid out in a grid system ...

... with roundabouts at the intersections, so getting about is quick, although predictably less so in rush hour. The grid is formed of numbered 'H' roads running horizontally on the map and 'V' roads running vertically.

Visitors who drive to Milton Keynes often get lost on these roads because they all look the same; the main roads are in tree-lined linear valleys to reduce road noise so there are few landmarks visible to navigate by. A map is recommended for people who are new to the town.

The City Centre was to be a vast slab running from the shopping centre (bottom, right of centre) via a "Business District" to the railway station away in the distance. But it took until May 1982 before the station opened, followed in 1983 by the now unused bus station.

See also "Bus Station Frustration [1]" (read again).

Most passengers wanted to go to the shopping centre and thus the bus station remained distant from sources of custom and, in a word, useless. Come privatisation and exposure of the weak network to the challenge of commercial operation, nobody fancied paying bus departure charges and most services ran to a line of stops almost outside the station entrance.

Even in decline, the bus station provided layover space and staff facilities, then these facilities disappeared. Disappeared is not the right word. The waiting area is still intact ...

... the snack bar is still there ...

... and the grand marbled sign ...

... announces locked doors.

There are even a few gently rotting departure bay signs ...

... to remind us of what it once was.

So in 2012 the main bus interchange is on the street at the central shopping centre ...

... where main operator Arriva has its "MKube" enquiry office.

Meanwhile the City council has just completed several millions of pounds of of work to improve the stops immediately outside the station, effectively creating a bus station (bottom) in full view of ...

... a disused bus station (top right). A picture from Northampton correspondent, Alan, allows a reasonable comparison with the original set of station stops as shown above.

Local rumour has it that the new roadways were too narrow until a big cheese came down from Arriva in Sunderland and complained! Hopefully the bus drivers will find their way through the traffic management?

So a reputed £4 million is arguably unnecessarily spent.

When the Milton Keynes Project started back in the sixties, the powers that be announced that this new town would not make the mistakes of previous new towns. Hmmm?

 Next Blog : Tuesday 24th July