In answer to a Facebook question (quoted within my answer) in response to elements of our bus proposals for the town bus at http://www.mbug.org.uk/bus_option_c.pdfPublic walking access from the Foundry Close area to Melksham Station is currently via Beanacre Road (the A350) - crossing twice, once near McDonald's and again via the underpass at Bath Road, then doubling back to the station down Station Approach. That's the Cyan line on the map. And yet the Station area and Foundry Close are neighbours, with the road on one side and council owned land on the other being blocked by a fence. If direct access were available, walking distance would be reduced from around 800 metres to 200 metres.
Driving access to Melksham Station from the Foundry Close area is even longer - as there's no right turn from the Beancre Road onto the Bath Road, and no U turnd at the ASDA traffic lights, traffic has to go double back via the Countrywide Roundabout and travel some 1.5 kmin total; in the opposite directon, there is a left turn lane so Foundry close is "only" an 800 metre drive from the station.
Take a look at the fence, which you can reach across public owned land on both sides, and you'll wonder "why can't a panel be removed to let people through - at least on foot". Ah - if it were only that simple!
1. On the station side there's a small piece of rough land to the fence which has a rise of just over a metre and steps will have to be provided - and as soon as you have steps on a new access you also need to have a way through for those who cannot use steps - so you're looking at a ramp with a "zig" in it to also provide a longer way around that's much flatter as well as (or as an alternative to) the steps
2. There's all sorts of issues with and around the rough land, being at the end of an industrial / heavy engineering unit there's things like gas and septic tanks and goodness knows what in the land that need sorting out - and as you walk up towards the station you're sharing a lane with a working factory environment with some heavy vehicles which will be manouevering / loading / etc.
3. Planning permission, land ownership, insurance, who's going to lead, who's going to pay for these works, who's going to maintain the new facilities, what to do to ensure the business can carry on operating in a safe way as people walk though / past.
All of the above are soluble for pedestrians, wheelchair users and cyclists (probably not for a through road, even just for buses) but the bill won't be a small one.
OK ... that's the line we've been given on this. Huge problems with what would appear to be a tiny project! However, we are trying to find a way forward. The issue isn't the only one we have at Melksham where passenger journeys have risen from around 3,000 per annum to around 60,000 over the last few years and are set to rise further if we have a rise in train capacity; just at present, the commuter train is busy and can't take too many more passengers, so growth is constrained. Parking is adequate - about 2/3 used - but the platform is too short for longer trains so whenever there's a train with enough capacity, it has to be loaded / unloaded "single door" which leads to delays. Then there's the issue that - although there's car parking - waiting space for people picking up is pretty stretched, and the single ticket machine has a long queue. Access at the south end towards "George Ward Gardens" has a dogleg just as the access to Foundry Close has, in this case a set of steps that's nearly rotted away totally and is fenced off.
Good news is that the issues are noted, that there's a master plan being drawn up, and that all the major players who need to be involved are. There's funding for the masterplan work too. It does make sense to ensure that works are not undertaken piecemeal, with money being wasted on one project that would block another and create new issues, but frankly it's rather outside my league to know / understand all this stuff which is why the TransWilts chair - Paul Johnson and president - Peter Blackburn - are taking a more active strategic role in this. And when the plans are drawn up, there remains the matter of funding the actual works. That's where the
LEP» , new station funding, etc, all comes in - these things are bid for an tend to be cyclic / subject to political whim and election cycles, if I'm allowed to be a bit cynical.
And all of this post comes from "can we take out a fence panel to allow better access to the station" !!!
I would encourage readers to come along to the Melksham Rail User Group meeting on 23rd June at the Town Hall (19:30 start) for an update - even if you're not yet a user.
Can you utilise McDonalds / Beanacre Road as your station stops along with the improved north entrance to the station and the traffic lights on the A350?
So to answer that question ... "Not at present - it's too far to walk from the station to that bus stop"
Adding bus stops on the A350 at its nearest point to the station causes concerns about the new stops blocking traffic on the trunk road (road users being far more important than public transport users, some have suggested) and safety issues there. My thoughts are that extra stops could be added where the road is 2 lanes - a stop by the gap in the fence on the northbound side, and by the Bath Road lights southbound - and the traffic holdup would be minimal as the pinch point is the single line of traffic just to the north.
For through buses (the x34 route, Monday to Saturday daytime only to Lacock and Chippenham) the stops on the A350 near McDonalds are sensible / useful once they're just 200m from the station. There's no layby there northbound, so that stop isn't sensible for a stop that's going to load whole bus fulls of people, or a route terminus where there's a layover. On the southbound side, there is potential for a layover and heavy load - which is good - but it's right outside people's houses and is liable to cause residents to be rather unhappy even if it were to be approved.
Looking in to the McDonald's / Aldi / Foundry Close area, there's little scope for terminating buses. Looks like the area was designed and built without any real prospect of public transport provision in from the A350 - "they can catch their bus on the main road".
Much of this may sort out in scatter from the masterplan - in the meantime, the (currently unserved!) bus stop at the station seems to be the pracgmatic and sensible way to help people make through journeys - it's not ideal, but it's very close to the station, it's a pulloff from Station Approach, and a bus wairing there for a couple of minutes isn't going to raise the fury of either drivers passing through or residents in their homes.
P.S. The northern access isn't just for McDonalds, Aldi and the residents of Foundry Close. There's significant housing to the north east of that map, a major store (Leekes) also just to the north, and a road that leads to a footbridge over the river to the major housing area of Melksham Forest, all of which would benefit from much shorter walks to the station if the northern access was available. The access together with town buses terminating at the station also enables residents of those significant areas (all of which have relatively low car ownership) shorter access to the buses at the station (if and when they're available).
