Saturday 8 June 2013

First changes: Focus on Harefield & Peartree

Each day, we're looking at an area of the city that will be affected by First's route and timetable changes from 30th June. Today, we look at the current 2A route between Hightown and the City Centre.


As the above map shows, the 2A is the only route serving Harefield. First 3 currently extends there in the evenings, but that extension is being cut. From 30th June, the 2A on this side of the city becomes the 13. It will run as far as Central Station instead of all the way to Lordshill. It will also be rerouted to serve Ocean Village rather than Central Bridge - the red box on this doctored route map:


Here's a summary of how the times are changing:

*F = runs as far as Fairfax Court. *H = runs as far as Harefield only. Last bus times are for the last bus through to Hightown (earlier) and the last to Harefield (later).

No more evening buses to Thornhill on this route. Also cut is the Sunday service - completely. This will leave Harefield cut off on Sundays, unless people are able to walk down to Thornhill Park Road for Bluestar 3 or Velvet A or to Townhill Way for the 8/8A. Brijan 7, which runs along West End Road, doesn't run on Sundays either.

Between Bitterne and Woolston, the 13 will run as per the current 2A via Peartree:


The lack of Sunday buses on First 13 will be a gift to Bluestar 3, which will become Peartree's only 7-days-a-week bus service.

See the full timetable for the new 13 here.

Next up: Shirley Warren

4 comments:

  1. Can I congratulate you on your examination of these changes. It makes very interesting reading and full marks for showing the poor planning by First.

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  2. By the way Velvet are going to continue running what they call an S2 route to run from RSH Hospital to General via Polygon, Hill Lane, St James Rd and Wilton Rd. Xelabus have agreed a network of college routes for Taunton's College too from September.

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  3. Peartree residents better hope bs3 is`nt pulled from Peartree,as they will be left in total limbo,on Sundays!

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  4. But for how long will Xelabus run the Taunton's college services?
    That many service registrations, in nearly three years of operation suggest major issues with xelabus.

    ReplyDelete