Rant/Vent Whatever!

Gingernutty

I just need to vent.

Wolverhampton is a tiny city that has been mismanaged for decades.

There are rail, bus and tram links which don't 'join up' and necessitate a route march across town to get the connection to carry on one's journey.

Since last April we have had no bus station. It was shut down for rebuilding works around Easter last year.

There was a short publicity campaign with maps handed out so that passengers could find the stops for their buses which were scattered across the city.

A week or so later, the local transport authority realising that there were a few problems with that, tweaked the bus routes and moved the stops.

Without telling the passengers or issuing new maps.

That was fun.

The building work has cost £22,500,000 and has necessitated the cutting down of mature trees, jams caused by rerouting traffic as new approach roads were created off the major ring road into the station and a massive glass lined footbridge to the train station across one section of the ring road which replicated the pavement along the bridge to the train station which it runs alongside.

That's two bridges running side by side to the same destination - one for foot traffic only.

That's £22,500,000 of taxpayers' money. Our money. £22.5million. :eek:

The local transport authority has also "taken the opportunity" to streamline, re-route and re-number some key bus services AND shut some down.

The bus station looks impressive and resembles an airport departure hall, (the station WH Smiths is certainly selling at airport prices with a 600ml bottle of Pepsi Max for £1.65!) the departure boards are clean and free of pigeon poop, the touchscreen help boards work and it's all shiny.

However, over a third of the bus services which used to run to or through the old bus station aren't going to be running through the new one.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2011/07/18/shock-over-wolverhampton-bus-station/

So tomorrow morning, passengers are going to show up at the bus station for their journey into work and THEN be given a map showing them where to go for their new/streamlined/defunct-and-replaced bus service.

Fabulous. :mad:

DCFC79

Sounds like fun and games,

paddyrg

Sadly, local government/councils tend to be vested interest magnets, awarding contracts with less due diligence than one would imagine. Not saying Wolverhampton are affected by this in any way, but I remember a job we worked on for a city council in the northern end of the country - they were overtly corrupt awarding big contracts to companies owned by the contract award decision maker, actually telling us to factor in bribes to the budgets, etc. Filthy and rotten to the core, and shamelessly in plain daylight a bunch of crooks. Knowing nothing of the Wolverhampton case I am sure they are nothing like that.

ERICS_MUM

I could tell similar stories about Chelmsford. If I thought I stood a chance I would put myself forward as a councillor, but there seems to be an "old boys" network running our town.

michaelvintner

Gingernutty wrote: »

I just need to vent.

Wolverhampton is a tiny city that has been mismanaged for decades.

There are rail, bus and tram links which don't 'join up' and necessitate a route march across town to get the connection to carry on one's journey.

Since last April we have had no bus station. It was shut down for rebuilding works around Easter last year.

There was a short publicity campaign with maps handed out so that passengers could find the stops for their buses which were scattered across the city.

A week or so later, the local transport authority realising that there were a few problems with that, tweaked the bus routes and moved the stops.

Without telling the passengers or issuing new maps.

That was fun.

The building work has cost £22,500,000 and has necessitated the cutting down of mature trees, jams caused by rerouting traffic as new approach roads were created off the major ring road into the station and a massive glass lined footbridge to the train station across one section of the ring road which replicated the pavement along the bridge to the train station which it runs alongside.

That's two bridges running side by side to the same destination - one for foot traffic only.

That's £22,500,000 of taxpayers' money. Our money. £22.5million. :eek:

The local transport authority has also "taken the opportunity" to streamline, re-route and re-number some key bus services AND shut some down.

The bus station looks impressive and resembles an airport departure hall, (the station WH Smiths is certainly selling at airport prices with a 600ml bottle of Pepsi Max for £1.65!) the departure boards are clean and free of pigeon poop, the touchscreen help boards work and it's all shiny.

However, over a third of the bus services which used to run to or through the old bus station aren't going to be running through the new one.

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2011/07/18/shock-over-wolverhampton-bus-station/

So tomorrow morning, passengers are going to show up at the bus station for their journey into work and THEN be given a map showing them where to go for their new/streamlined/defunct-and-replaced bus service.

Fabulous. :mad:

Just sounds like Typical British inability to do anything properly. Like some of the awful bits of junk British Leyland used to put out in the 70's where the people that designed the back of the car did not talk to the people that designed the front.

MamaMoo_2

I don't see what was wrong with the old bus station. It was perfectly fit for it's purpose. I moved to Wolverhampton in Sept 2009. I'd moved away again by the following September because of how much of a pain in the a*se the transport became. I lived about 3 bus stops out of the centre, and despite the 126 running every 10 minutes, it was always full with prams, and I'd find myself waiting over an hour for a bus I could actually get on. Or I'd get a bus in & out of town again.
That money could have been spent much more wisely.
Fir example the Metro is in dire need of an upgrade.
Ditto the NHS services. (it was so bad that I had my son at Birmingham Women's, a good half hour away! I'm guessing you probably heard about the midwife in Wolves in 2010 who cut a child's finger off when cutting the umbilical cord!)
The roads were a constant state, traffic management was awful and the roads themselves were full of pot holes.
I also noticed all the route changes around the city centre. From one day to the next I wouldn't know whether my bus would drop off at the police station, or drive a further 5 minutes to end up about 50m away.
I think that it will be a long time before places like Wolverhampton figure out how to effectively manage their funds & services

gordikin

22.5 million...you got off lightly. Edinburgh tram system 700+ million plus so far and the rails are already fornicated despite having not one tram run over them because the contractor used the wrong tar apparently. They have 'adjusted the length of the line to the point nobody actually understands where it's coming from or going to. It's a total disaster from start to finish. Apparently the route has been so shortened that surplus spare trams are being hawked. Public money is paying for this. 700 million for what?

DCFC79

Why are councils unable to spend money wisely and not waste it.

WestonDave

I'm sure somewhere at the bottom of all these schemes there is a News International style scandal.

Locally the Conservatives (yes - we don't want to spend public money on anything Tories!) had planned this bizarre 1 mile long bus only route along a disused railway line currently used as a combination of pathway, parts of peoples gardens etc. They eventually conceded that it would cut something like 2 minutes off the journey time for the park and ride service but was going to cost something ridiculous. What made this worse was that once the buses got off this private utopia, they'd then have to fight their way through the centre (including congestion around the new bus station due to poor layout design - extra retail space won over road space!) all the way out to the other side of the city to another park and ride site about to be built on green meadows near a river. Fortunately at the local elections they lost enough seats to lose control of the council so most of the controversial bits have been kicked into touch - however even now they are still bleating on about how its going to be a disaster that this scheme doesn't proceed. What makes me laugh is that our local councillor is one of the biggest stirrers on this, and yet he drives 1/4 mile from his home to the local centre on a weekend to do his surgery, drives his wife into town every weekday - a real do as I say not as I do merchant.

The real issue is that in most localities, bus services are effectively a monopoly and as a result fares are high. We live about a mile from the city centre and would have to pay something like £2.60 return (assuming you can get a return as they won't sell them before 9am on weekdays). That simply doesn't make sense - if a bus carries 30+ people, has one driver and uses something like 4 times the amount of fuel as a car it should be possible to make bus travel cheaper than car travel, especially as their fuel has less duty on it. Until the price issue is sorted, all the fancy schemes under the sun won't get people on public transport.

Fuzzy_Duck

I don't get what was wrong with the old bus station. I go to Bridgnorth sometimes from Birmingham so it was really convenient being able to run off the train and make the bus just in time. Last time I made the journey I ended up at a horrible run down bus stop for ages whilst every bus but mine pulled in. When I finally got close enough to check the timetable it said a different time to what was on the bus company's website, and it looked like I'd just missed the last bus. I waited some more as I didn't have any other option and eventually I saw the bus coming down the road. Typically another bus was already in the bus stop, so I did a dramatic leap in front of it in my attempt to get the other bus driver's attention. Only to watch in horror as it went off without me :mad: I'm not sure he ever had any intention of stopping as he was running very late.

I managed to get a lift thankfully (it's a good 40 minute drive so a taxi wasn't an affordable option) but I was mightily miffed. I sent the bus company an email asking them why their times were incorrect but never got a response. Can't say I was surprised.

Gingernutty

I'm sure it won't come as any surprise to MamaMoo and Fuzzy-Duck that the usual crowd of tracksuited, baseball cap wearing drunks and plain old weirdos have set themselves up in and around the bus station again.

I agree with MamaMoo - there wasn't much wrong with the old station that better security and dedicated police officers wouldn't have sorted out. :mad:

£22.5million would have gone a long way to paying for that..........

I dunno, how do you get elected around here?