Monday 5 December 2011

Mapping the changes

First of all, thanks to Phil from Velvet, who has confirmed that they will be running routes A and C1 to a Sunday timetable on New Year's Day. They'll be the only bus routes operating that day (apart from Bluestar's free Citylink between Central Station and the Isle of Wight ferry terminal).

The latest changes have taken effect to some of First's routes. Worst hit is the 5, which has been cut back to Aldermoor and reduced in frequency to just hourly Mon-Sat daytimes. The shrivelled up rump of First 5 now looks like this:
First haven't yet updated the network map on their website, so I've doctored a corner of it for you:
As you can see, Bakers Drove is now a bus-free zone. The Eastern side of Lorsdhill North how has to make do with one bus an hour on route 21, where it used to have a total of three buses an hour to town on weekday daytimes. The 21 takes a lot longer to get to town than the 5 did, due to its circuitous route. This deterioration in service for Lordshill North has not gone unnoticed by posters to First's Facebook page.

Southampton City Council's bus map (also showing Bluestar, Unilink and Stagecoach routes) is now hideously out of date for that corner of the city, so I've updated that too:

There is some good news: First 4 has been extended from Totton Asda to Totton College. Here's an updated (again by me) extract of Hampshire County Council's Totton map showing where it goes:

Don't forget also that some journeys on route 80 are now numbered 80A and run a slightly different way between Locks Heath and Titchfield:

Just in case the dodgy graphics hadn't given it away, all of the above maps have been edited by myself because First, Southampton City Council and Hampshire County Council can't be bothered to keep theirs up to date. I'm sure they still keep the copyright though hopefully they won't mind me making them relevant and semi fit for purpose again.

3 comments:

  1. Good job!

    I´m surprise with the fact that I still haven´t seen on facebook any complaint coming from bus users from Netley & Hamble as their services have been terribly affected by the last cuts.

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  2. How have Netley and Hamble been "terribly affected"? Still every 20 mins weekday daytimes but evening journeys withdrawn Mon-Wed as has happened on most other routes in Eastleigh borough. Lack of complaints suggest no one used the journeys anyway so probably a sensible saving of council money!

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  3. Perhaps you should hold a competition as to how many years it will take Bluestar to remove their now disused bus stops on the old 14 route - all flags through Midanbury, Townhill Park and Mansbridge still up. Meanwhile on the new P1 route the flags still say 14 and the bus runs around with a blank display over a month after the change.

    It took Bluestar over a month to change the 65 to BS5 - shambolic!

    Meanwhile the 46 is still proudly displayed on all stops through Shirley....

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