Political Double Think - Twenty's Plenty
We all know that the Welsh Government is busting a gut to improve public transport ...
... to encourage more people to travel by bus ...
... and, ultimately, to hand all bus services over to Transport for Wales.
So, as part of this pro public transport policy, from 17th September, all 30mph speed limit areas are to become 20mph areas. This will slow down buses in urban areas and increase their costs, making more services unviable - as we are seeing in Cardiff.
On the map of the capital below only those roads shown in puce will have a higher speed limit that 20mph!
The effect on Cardiff's roads is even more stark in the city centre.
Something of an own goal, eh?
All Gone But Not Quite
Scrolling down the list of changes to the"withdrawn services"+ section we find a batch of secondary services that are being withdrawn without replacement. Some of them take passengers to Heath Hospital. So good news for the frail and vulnerable, then?
51 & 53: City Centre - Pentwyn - City Centre
No direct replacement is planned at this stage and Cardiff Council are considering their tender opportunities. However, on weekdays an early morning journey on new route 54 (see New Services section below) will offer a direct link to UHW Heath Hospital. For Pentwyn and Llanederyn, services 57 & 58 remain unaltered in the route they follow but will have a new timetable. For Cyncoed, the route of service 52 will remain unaltered but there will be a new timetable.
These link Pentwyn ...
... and Llanederyn ... 
... in a huge loop. They run hourly Monday to Saturday but with less journeys on the Saturday. Extract only below.
The new service 54 mentioned in the text is just one journey! Big deal!
64: City Centre - Pentrebane - Danescourt - UHW Heath Hospital
No direct replacement is planned at this stage and Cardiff Council are considering their tender opportunities. For Fairwater and Pentrebane, the route of service 61 will remain unchanged, but there will be a new timetable. For Danescourt, routes 62 and 63 will follow their existing route but with a new timetable. For Llandaff North routes 24 and 25 will follow their current routes, but with a new timetable.
This goes all over the place via Pentrebane and Danescourt ...
... and on via Llandaff North and Whitchurch ...
WITHDRAWN
65 & 65A: UHW Heath Hospital - St. Mellons / Llanrumney
No direct replacement is planned at this stage and Cardiff Council are considering their tender opportunities. A partial weekday direct journey is introduced on new route 54 (see New Services section below) to offer a direct bus arriving at UHW Heath Hospital at 07:40. Please see details above for revisions to routes 44, 45, 49 & 50 that operate in Llanrumney and St. Mellons.
This has a very bitty service between Hospital and the big estates, Llanrumney ...
The timetable is hardly spectacular ...
... and not very well presented. It runs Monday to Friday only.
WITHDRAWN
66: City Centre - Fairwater
No direct replacement is planned at this stage and Cardiff Council are considering their tender opportunities. For Llandaff, the route of service 25 will remain unchanged, but there will be a new timetable; similarly for Fairwater, the route of service 61 will remain unchanged, but there will be a new timetable.
This is something of an infill service between two more frequent routes (61, 62/3) ...
... but it does have a tidy fixed interval service.
Astute readers will have spotted the Mantra associated with each table:-
Cardiff Council are considering their tender opportunities.
Here it gets a bit silly. Who is the only shareholder of Cardiff Bus? Correct - Cardiff City Council! So Cardiff City Council (bus company) goes peaked cap in hand ...
... to Cardiff City Council (moneybags) who after due consideration offers Cardiff City Council (bus) a bag of pennies to operate a set of replacement bus services for those that are withdrawn. But, according to Cardiff City Council (bus) accounts, Cardiff City Council (moneybags) has already stumped up £12.60 million(!) to keep Cardiff City (bus) from sinking inexorably into the depths of the River Taff.
But a replacement service (and fbb means just ONE replacement service) was announced as recently at 23d August. Here is the timetable for routes 101 and 102.
The somewhat reduced service runs only on Monday to Friday.
As yet the new route has not appeared on the network map; but young Dai has bough a new yellow dayglo pen and inked in all the roads served by the 101 and 102.
This cobbled together route serves most of the bits vacated by the withdrawn services but nothing runs into the city centre.
65 and 65A
51/53
64
and 66
Without a doubt the portmanteau services are a very poor replacement for those that vanish this coming weekend. fbb reckons that after a few months the 101/102 will be withdrawn because of very low numbers.
fbb awaits with eager anticipation the new network map incorporating the 101 and 102. It will be a major cartographic exercise fitting its multiple gyrations neatly into the September 2023 production.
Tomorrow we go to Barry ...
... but not the one who has just (on Sunday evening) won the European Masters snooker match in Hamburg.
Next Barry Bus blog : Wednesday 30th August
Cardiff Bus have posted a September bus map on their website ( https://images.cardiffbus.com/2023-08/Cardiff%20network%20map%20COMBINED%20594x420mm%20sep23%20PROOF.pdf ) but it does not seem to agree with the details that you have given. The advertised changes listed in the "Planned changes" list do not give any clue to the appearance of the 101/2. Does FBB know something that the Cardiff Buses Publicity Department doesn't?
ReplyDeleteThe 101/102 are mentioned in a "revised" version of the "September changes", also at the bottom of the "Service Updates" column on the left of the home page. I think it only went up at the end of last week, and the route map is to be amended - perhaps today????
ReplyDeleteGiven the article confirms that this is a very late change to what was planned, not sure why FBB is so excitable. Yes a map used for internal purposes has been added, better than further delaying details until it’s added onto the network map, no? Also, of all the rather dramatic language used in this post and yesterdays, it’s reassuring that you note the withdrawn services are infrequent or infill. Direct infrequent links are not busy to UHW. Also, 54 is a big deal for the rather reasonable number who use it to get to UHW for 0800. Same as the 14! Not sure you are factually correct on other matters in this entry. Cant wait for tomorrow!
ReplyDeleteOne other point is that Cardiff Bus, like many operators, is short of staff. I don't know by how much; but there have been quite a few cancelled services and they've been actively recruiting for months.
ReplyDelete