Bordon on the Border [6]

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Watford Junction Update?

Recently fbb blogged about the improvements to Watford Junction station forecourt area. In particular there was some disquiet about arrangements for taxis and concerning naughty people dropping off passengers near the entrance (horror! how ridiculous!) and deigning to avoid a large one way diversion to get to the short-stay car park. See "Not Bored at Watford [3]" (read again).

Now Richard Harrington is swinging into action.

He's the local MP.

In the last fortnight I have met with Managers at Watford Junction Station as well as the Taxi Drivers serving the station to discuss problems of access to the remodelled station. The managers are currently looking into two proposals to make it easier and safer for all drivers and those using the car parks at the station. They want to remind station users that dropping off and picking up should use the short term car park, just past the bus stop (sic!) and are working to make this clearer to change signs and information.

When he says "bus stop" he does, of course, mean "bus station"; but he is an MP and probably doesn't really understand what a bus is. And, remember that "just past the bus stop station" involves a hefty trek round a one way system for many drivers.

Well done Richard; we await developments with eager anticipation.

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But Bordon beckons ...

It's a nice-looking map, but ...

... like so many cartographic creations these days, it leaves a lot to be desired. There are several simple problems. The "Eco-centre" (map) is actually the "Eco-station" and it is far from clear which road actually passes the Hospital, but, more to the point, very few of the stop names on the three timetables appear on the Hampshire County Council map!

For example, here is the EC2 "name bank":-

Just one of these places appears on the map, just one! It is reasonable to assume that Whitehill Chase Hospital (which most residents would say is at Bordon) is "hospital" on the map. The rest are a mystery. The Forest Centre is the "new" shopping facility shown as "library" on the map.

Chalet Hill Shops is the traditional centre of the town, located near "Bordon" on the map. The post office isn't any more ...

... and we already know that the fire station is now the eco-station. The map does not tell us where "Oakhanger Road" might be, nor that "Bordon The Fairway" is, cartographically, "Hogmoor". We can glean nothing of the long-standing "Whitehill Prince of Wales"; indeed, where is Whitehill?

EC1 is a little better; we can identify the villages of Lindford and Standford, but, then it gets worse.

The EC1 leaves Bordon as far as the fire station (or eco station or eco-centre) following exactly the same roads as the EC2 but has a completely different set of stop names.

The Forest Centre is now on Forest Road whereas the stop at the Forest Centre has been demoted to a less-than-helpful Pinehill Road Apollo Drive. Chalet Hill shops have been expunged by High Street A325 and "replaced" by a named stop at the end of Hollybrook Park ...

.... no longer near the shops. The closed Post Office is now correctly identified as the local sorting office but the Eco-station has vanished completely.

EC3 suffers from much the same sort of problems.

Bordon Heather Close Firgove Road is at Whitehill and Blackmoor only gets a name check on the return run; outwardly it is omitted. At Greatham, the passenger would search fruitlessly for the post office, located far from the hub of the village, ...

... because it, too, has gorn!

And surely the very obvious Greatham Inn ...

... would be better name for the village stop nearby, rather than the almost obscured ...

... Oaks Caravan Park round the corner. Unless, of course, the pub has gone the way of the post office!

Finally fbb can find no actual stop at the hardly noticeable Longmoor Camp WE T C (whatever that is) ...

... but then, being military, the W E T C probably doesn't exist!

Here is an fbb alternative map; not perfect but better.

To do a proper job, the timetable names would need some fairly extensive "adjustment" to match truth rather than the all-pervading and much-misleading NaPTAN** database.

But if we make it easy for folk to use timetables and maps, they might actually travel on the buses - and that would never do, would it?

And it would be so, so nice if the people drawing maps were to engage in fruitful converse with the people designing the timetables. Both would benefit from a little consistency; but, no doubt, both were created by people who have never been to Bordon!

**NaPTAN = National Public Transport Access Nodes; that's "bus stops" for those of us who speak English.

P.S. Don't bother to check with the operator, AMK, as their website had no mention of the Bordon ECs; as usual, one of the benefits of having on-line infomation so readily available.

 Next Bus Blog : Thursday 16th May