Perhaps Google has been corrected, I know that when it opened sat-navs were saying 'take next exit' and I have been on an m3 service which followed and continental arctic up and over the bus only bridge, the arctic driver was happily put on his way to the ring road by our bus driver when the bus on which I was on had to stop so as the arctic could exit from the allotments stop onto Stoke Lane.

I can't get my head around that last sentence, please elaborate.

So that'll be a million in a year, only 229 years to go and its all paid for.

I was going to write similar on a Metrobus post that MH could take a leaf out of JF's book. I am told that very often Bath's customers are pleasantly surprised to board their bus to have JF at the wheel. I don't think MH would lower himself to take on the role of a ticket examiner if only to try and improve his public image.

Just had a telephone conversation with an insider, a cool £250,000 in fines issued for using bus only M32 infrastructure since m3 launch. According to him Google Maps are directing travellers via the bus only exit to access UWE.

There is a stop handy for St. Mary Redcliffe on Redcliffe Hill outside the Mercure Hotel, the next stop being Temple Way.

To answer a question that Grahame posed in an earlier post on this thread, there is Metrobus infrastructure to allow alternating services to run in a clockwise loop around the central area apart from Cabot Circus South, in my view not needed, just exit Cabot Circus by the Bond Street exit and use the pedestrian crossing to the M3 stop which is also the stop for the Falcon, 62, T1, Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4 and Y5 services to name most. The only clockwise stop needed would be one on Temple Way opposite the existing anti-clockwise stop. One problem though, waiting for a clockwise service seeing an anticlockwise service traversing the loop in that direction might have got one to LA quicker than the next clockwise service. However it should be re-iterated that all 3 of the high profile P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) services, the Brislington, Portway and the m2 Long Ashton, all operate roughly on an anticlockwise route around the central area as does the A1 to/from the Airport.

As an aside to this, a number of high profile employers have re-located from the Harbourside to Temple Quay, Bruges Salmond being one and the recent moving of many council workers into 100 Temple Street from the many distributed locations in the central area of the city.

Wot, I'm still waiting for mine for a journey on June 16th.

So am I.

Well Monday was opening day for Metrobus m2 route, DISASTER day from what I saw and heard.

Departed Lyde Green P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) on the m3 09:00 service from Emersons Green to the Centre which had to wait time at UWE and surprisingly only picked up 1 passenger there to add to the 6 already on the bus. Pulled up behind one of the new m2 route vehicles at Cabot Circus and had to wait, and wait, and wait before the driver of my bus threw the gear selector into reverse. Backed a bit and then pulled out into the Bond Street traffic to travel onto the City Centre.

Once on the Centre I looked around for wheelchair user DR who I said I'd meet there but there was no sign of him. Went to the Colston Hall for a comfort break and returned to obtain a tea from the trailer tea/coffee vendor opposite the forces recruitment office, saw DR there and called out to him and before I had crossed the road DR advised me that there was chaos at Temple Meads. No signs pointing to where to get the m2, passengers exiting the station looking around on the incline for this new super dooper bus service to the city centre were being advised to get the 8/9 to the city centre or the X39 from the bottom of the incline outside the Holiday Inn Express. Other passengers were being advised to return to the station entrance and use the side entrance, walk down to the Temple Mead gyratory roundabout under construction and then along Temple Way to the stop at the back of the hotel there, I knew it as the Crowne Plaza but I think its different now. A walk of about ¾ of a mile from the booking hall at the station and with luggage, well, I'll not comment further.

Well DR and myself decided that we take the approaching m2 out to Long Ashton. Bus pulled up and DR requested the bus body be lowered so he could board, no way, lowering the body would damage the bodywork of the bus so at many stops the driver has to leave the driving cab and manually operate the ramp which is what happened when we arrived at the LA P&R site. Didn't establish whether the body lowering function on the vehicles had been isolated for this service. On the ride out to the P&R DR filled me in with the comments made on Radio Bristol earlier in the morning which was nothing but criticism and derision.

At the P&R site there were 3 First personnel, 5 persons wearing the red Metrobus polo shirts which may or may not have been First employees too but in the 2 hours we were there at times all 8 of these persons were fending off criticism of this shambles leaving drivers having to leave their buses and doing their best they could to talk the passengers through how to buy their tickets, I saw passengers walking up to the ticket machine (I-Point in Metrobus language) with notes in hand so the “no cash” message hadn't reached the ears of some.

When one of the First persons was free I remarked to him how I would have thought the outfit running this Metrobus project would have produced a video on how to obtain their tickets before travel and show it on a screen in the LA waiting room as a repeating video loop and should have been loaded onto the onboard computers on the m3 when that service started up and was free for the first two weeks of operation, instead all that was displayed was an alternating “flying” f  / First, the operator and HANNOVER, the manufacturer of the flat screens. That individual agreed with me on that. I also mentioned the problem of the bus body not being lowered for DR to aboard, and the individual looked puzzled, shouldn't be a problem. He went to the driver of a bus which was waiting and asked the driver to lower the bodywork while he observed, an inch at a time then stop. He came back to me and confirmed that whilst the body could be lowered, at a low kerb the “jockey wheel”, as he called it, might damage the bodywork due to the way its attached to the vehicle so the driver was right and played safe.
 
The waiting room at the LA P&R has been tarted up to give it a refreshed look and make it into an 'm2 waiting lounge', two very nice toilets which I used both, The first by ignorance. You see one toilet door has roundel pictograms of both a lady and a wheelchair user and the other has a pictogram on it of, err, a lady, I plumped to use the one with the two pictograms on it and use the disabled facility, that WAS the ladies too, the other was the gents, the one with the single pictogram of a lady on the entrance door. It was funny watching the female sex pushing that door and suddenly retracting themselves when faced with the sight of two urinals and having a retake on the entrance door, yes it does portray a lady there. One young girl went in and didn't retract herself immediately but came out laughing her head off telling her friends she went in there and after as she emerged from the cubicle there was an old geezer having a pee in front of her. All she wanted to do was wash her hands and was directed to the genuine ladies room, meanwhile her friends took it in turns to push the outer and inner dors to the gents fotting the door with the ladies pictogram on it showing the urinals behind the two doors.

DR was very concerned that although the 505, the BCT contracted service operating a ½ hourly service to Southmead Hospital from the P&R is still in being despite the media being informed it had been withdrawn, there were no timetable leaflets for this service to be found. DR is concerned that this service could face the axe as a connection from m2 to the 24 can be made at Redcliffe Hill which would then take punters on a mystery tour of Bristol via The Centre, Nelson Street, Broadmead, Old Market, Stapleton Road, Fishponds Road, Muller Road, Lockleaze, Horfield finally depositing them at Southmead Hospital an hour later having missed their appointments.

I really looked forward to my first ride on a guided busway, I was, more than mildly disappointed, I was mortified actually. Apart from one small, say 20 degree curve to the left outbound, right inbound, all the guided bits are, umm, dead straight and with a bit of common sense the whole project could have been constructed without the need for any guided bits at all. Even the Village Idiot Construction Company could have done better.

On the outward journey, on Cumberland Road, there were long term roadworks taking place just past the junction with Prince Street and adjacent to the Wapping Wharf construction site. A tipper truck was being loaded with spoil from these roadworks. The bus had to wait for a gap in the oncoming traffic but there was insufficient room for the bus to pass and so the driver had to mount the offside pavement to pass the obstructing tipper. That would not have been possible had the Metrobus shelter and seating been installed there and it probably will be 12 months before the Wapping Wharf development is complete. There was of course the Metrobus I-point there standing in the middle of what was left of the sidewalk with barely enough room for a wheelchair or wide childrens buggy to pass due to the encroachment of the construction sites hoardings into the said sidewalk. Further along Cumberland Road nearly all of the area for coach and car parking near the Harbour Masters offices was occupied by contractors vehicles working on the project to stabilise the bank of The Cut which has slipped and caused the railway line which the harbour chuffer used to be closed and could lead to Cumberland Road itself subsiding into The Cut. What would happen to Metrobus then ?

Arriving back at the Centre DR and myself retired to SUBWAY for nourishment and it so happened the lunchtime Points West news bulletin was on the tv screen which we watched. The MD of FWOE was interviewed. I have met JF on a number of occasions and he, as Grahame will confirm, is a very approachable person and I have great respect for him and in the PW^▸ (Permanent Way) interview I thought he looked a very angry man, angry because he and his staff and the few others were having to fend off the unhappy punters criticisms and insults and NO ONE from the Metrobus organization or the council were anywhere to be seen, what a cowardly way to foist a high profile project onto the public, a project the people of Bristol didn't want.

Although some of you reading this may disagree, I said to DR the best bit of that was viewing the graffiti that has appeared on the pristine concrete sculptures that masquerade as road infrastructure, when is the Bristol School of Graffiti Artists going to finish their project and colour in the rest of this pristine concrete sculpture. 

Any forum members reading this just put a date in your diary, Saturdays 22nd and 29th September on which days travel on m2 will be free and under the slogan “m2 try it for free” and enjoy a few hours in Bristols Central area, Harbourside or maybe visit the Great Britain or go on that shopping spree that you have been promising yourself for yonks.



 

He ain't SG mayor, I thought he was Bristols.

Another 3 howlers unearthed today.

Timetable for tomorrows start of m2 has a square photo with rounded corners of sports fans extolling the virtues of Ashton Gate Stadium as being stadium, conference & events revealing nearest metrobus stop: Ashton Gate yet two weeks ago the local Bristol rag had a message for sports fan NOT to use metrobus for travel to the stadium by metrobus as they haven't enough vehicles to cope with the hordes of fans expected at fixtures.

On service 903 which m2 is replacing you could buy a 10 or 20 ticket package, if any passenger has any journeys left on these packages they will not be accepted on m2 even though it could mean travel between exactly the same points on m2 as the holder travelled on the 903. You can get a refund so it seems some organisation has to set up a section to deal with these refunds which probably will not be a at minimal cost, crazy.

Controversy has raged over the mysterious disappearance of the South Bristol Link route from the LA P&R^▸ (Park and Ride) to Hengrove as detailed in the original spec for the project. Guess what. The self same route has now mysteriously re-appeared on the Metrobus map posted at Metrobus stops as a dotted line together with the m1 route as a solid line with more dotted line in the North Bristol area on said maps. 

Will be out tomorrow for my first ride on a guided (justa)bus. 

Don't know where the proposed bay platform would be located but I assumed it would be located at the south end of the station utilising space where the long gone double track went Stratford way towards, from memory, Cheltenham Spa (Malvern Road) and Cheltenham Spa (St. James) stations and where the Royal Mail building was, it might still be there in another use. Is the trackbed of the defunct Kingham Branch trackbed still in railway ownership, I know there was a down loop there when I last took notice of the infrastructure there, there was even the boarded up shell of Cheltenham Lansdown Signal Box at the north end of the down loop there too.

Not allowed by BCC^» (Bristol City Council - about) who own the P&R LA site, only solution BCC can't veto is the current P&R service from LA P&R to Clifton which goes up Jacobs Wells Road with pax alighting near Anchor Road/Hotwells Road/Jacobs Wells Road roundabout, even to re-route the Clifton P&R service to run along Anchor Road to turn right into the Harbourside area turning at the Lloyds building turning circle back to Jacobs Wells Road is opposed by BCC/Metrobus. 

Agreed but if faced with a guaranteed £1m relay siding or a £4m possible new platform what would you plump for ?

What is the legislation ? reference(s) please.