Cribbs Causeway bus station 12/01/26

[whole diary]

[Mark A]

tl:dr Multiple hours on buses, slow over the ground, but worked well.

Needing to run an errand / collect things / listen to music, the bus won out for a multi-node trip that included Cribbs Causeway from Bath - during which I discovered that the No. 19 no longer runs to Cribbs Causeway - it turns round at Parkway, from which other buses are available.

I was returning via a different route to my arrival and Cribbs Causeway bus station, unless the traveller has a smartphone, is very difficult to read - it's as if there's a condition of its operation that it not be used as the bus interchange that it is. The location of the stops is clearly indicated, but nothing to say what goes from where save for the timetables on the stops, some of which are displayed to the interior of the stop through glass and behind manifestations.

Discovering the T7's departure stop for the city centre involved a complete clockwise tour of the bus station to check each stop. (I then checked the smartphone and Google Maps told me the letter of the stop I needed).

To continue last week's theme, the T7 is a TfW^▸ (Transport for Wales) service and was an electric bus, which ran quickly down to the centre and then sat in a queue of 2 or three coaches for the bus station entrance as there was congestion within with about 95% occupancy of the bays, but in any case it made a good connection with an X39 back to Bath, and a great improvement from a few years ago when it didn't call at the bus station but from a stop in the road close to the BRI^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads station (that is the formal station code - see also BTM^▸ (Bristol Temple Meads station (strictly, it should be BRI) but BTM is a commonly used alternative))), or Bristol Royal Infirmary (hospital), depending on context) - and the directions to said stop were a bit vague.

Mark