As you can see I am stopped at the Sloop in Kingskerswell. You can also see that it is raining. If you study for a second you can see that the doors to the bus are 15 feet (3 metres) past the bus shelter. When I pulled in to the bus stop there were people waiting for the bus and I did stop in the position you can see me in. Why I can hear you asking did I make my passengers walk 15 feet in the rain instead of stopping by the shelter. OK. OK, I cannot hear you, asking or not as the case maybe, but you know what I mean.Have a look at the road behind the bus, half hidden by my mirror is 38 tonnes of speeding, sorry rephrase that, going fast (40 mph) heavy goods vehicle. You may also note that the road is not very wide. So if I stop at the bus shelter the back of the bus will stick out into the path of 38 tonnes of going fast heavy goods vehicle. Not the best of ideas, especially on a wet road. So why did the council (1) put the bus shelter there and not 15 feet further forward in the first place. Where there's plenty of room for it. The only logical explanation I can think off is that some one in the council office does not like the people who live in Kingskerswell and wants them to get wet when they get on a bus.
Unfortunately I could run the blog for weeks if I went through all the other misplaced bus stops and shelters along the route. I'm not going to though, prehaps once a month, called imaginatively "This month's misplaced bus stop/shelter."
Footnote (1) Please note; Local Councils erect bus shelters and bus stops, not the bus company.
14 comments:
And let's be honest, the average local council or PTE employee (who is sooooh qualified to design your local transport network) knows as much about the realities of bus travel as the flea on a dogs backside...If they can't position a bus shelter correctly, or provide reasonable bus priority measures (despite pro-bus legislation) or indeed can't actually do anything properly (except either go sick or cut back on the tiny proportion of services councils have ever actually really paid for)...viz sweet f.a. in the grand scheme of things),then how come they reckon they're better qualified to do the job than transport professionals who've been at the sharp end (ie if you don't make out you're sacked) all their working lives...bunch of useless jobsworths
And also . . . Now we have low floor buses here in Worthing, the council have raised part of the kerb to meet the platform, only the raised section is nearly always away from the shelter. I'll not mention Portsmouth Bus station, brand new, paid for by the council, planned by the council, placed one meter to far forward . . . by the council. bless 'em.
At a guess, I'd say they put that shelter there so as not to offend the owners of the Sloop, who's sign would be obscured.
One of my pet hates (but also a sadistically satisfying result) is those potential passengers who start to walk towards the bus as it is pulling into the stop.
Now I've already planned exactly where I'm going to stop - opposite the bus stop sign or entrance to the (correctly sited) shelter and am braking with the right pressure on the brake to come to a stop there.
In the meantime, they've walked 15 or 20 feet down the road and then have to walk back to get on the bus.
To Steve re the pub sign,
One) the sign went up after the bus shelter.
Two) Local councils would NEVER consider, in fact it is against their religion, doing anything as considerate as not offending someone they could posibly offend. In fact if you go for a job working for a local council you are asked why you wish to work for the council. If you answer "For the good of the community." you had better have your fingers crossed or you will be quietly led out of the Town Hall and pushed under a passing bus.
It's not just where there are bus shelters. A once-a-week rural service about 40 miles away from where I live - the council (who tender the service) time the bus to reverse outside the primary school, at exactly the same times as the bin trucks (also run by the council) come around...
Dave, I could have disagreed with you re councils since my oldest stepdaughter works for the Brisbane city council, but we got a letter from our local council (Redland shire) today saying our water meter was replaced back in August because it was broken.
They'd estimated what we owed them going by our usage between certain dates.
All I can say is, I'd like to know where they got their crystal ball from because one of those dates hasn't arrived yet.
I can feel an anti council blog coming on.
I expect the stop and shelter were supposed to be handily close to entrance that's in the foreground of your photo. All well and good, right?
But then someone from the highways dept will have pointed out that bus shelters are too tall to be placed in the visibility splay for said entrance (note wall height). Hence, shelter is shuffled along the pavement and passengers have to hike to the bus doors.
Double decker buses however, clearly wouldn't cause accidents by affecting visibility at the junction...
it goes back to the days when there was back loading buses obviously these people are still in the dark ages!!!!
Well done Tracey, I wondered who would be the first to spot that.
Do you really think the council were that percipient and thoughtful?
Well if they're anything like our council (York) then they'll deliberately use the positioning of bus stops (along with other measures such as road narrowing etc) to ensure that the bus disrupts the smooth flow of traffic.
Would you believe I was actually asked once (many years ago) whether we minded a stop being moved back a few yards "so that the buses could act as a form of mobile traffic calming" - needless to say we thought it was dodgy and objected...today they probably wouldn't ask...
I find that most bus stops and shelters are positioned to accomodate doors and the REAR of the bus. Unfortunatly the doors have always been, in my lifetime (35+ years) at the front. Maybe the council planners should venture outside into the 21st century and have a look around.
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