I am copying my objection about the removal of the 384 from the roads in High Barnet and New Barnet below, in case it is of interest or help to anyone - maybe it won't make any difference but it's still worth trying. I would urge people opposing this part of the consultation to write directly to Tfl using consultations@tfl.gov.uk rather than completing the 'online survey', which is in my view trying to trick respondents into being counted as agreeing implicitly to the removal of the 384 from the roads, by only asking whether you agree with the extension to Edgware - typical TfL sneaky tactics, how that organisation has fallen! I am also copying to London Assembly Member Andrew Dismore - please write to him too if you are concerned as he is very proactive about bus-related issues: andrew.dismore@london.gov.uk
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I am writing to register and explain my opposition to part of the TfL consultation viewable at
consultations.tfl.gov.uk/buses/route-384/ which is in several parts. The consultation is only open until 22 October - in my view this is not a long enough time period for a consultation of this magnitude. Although I no longer reside in the affected area (High Barnet/New Barnet), I did until some years ago, and still regularly visit family there using the 384 bus. I hope you will take seriously the points made below, in which I oppose the plans to remove the 384 from serving a large number of residential roads in High Barnet and New Barnet, as well as from New Barnet station and New Barnet town centre (East Barnet Road) entirely.
In my view the proposals represent a disaster for residents of these and surrounding roads, as many will be left entirely cut off from the transport network and face long walks to their nearest bus service as they try to access stations, shops and Barnet Hospital. Elderly and disabled people and those with reduced mobility, who have relied on the 384 running close to their homes for 28 years, will of course be the ones disproportionately negatively impacted. Unfortunately I have no faith in the TfL consultation process and it is my view that in this time of devastating cuts to bus services that TfL takes no notice whatsoever of what respondents to their consultations say, and simply goes ahead with what they have already planned - I know that passengers are acutely aware of this trend.
TfL has turned what could have been a welcome extension of the 384 to Edgware into yet another exercise in cuts to bus services, by altering the route to remove it from residential roads in Barnet it has served since the route began in 1990, and removing it from New Barnet town centre and New Barnet station entirely. It is insulting to passengers that cuts are being dressed up as improvements, and the consultation will no doubt once again be a token one, with the decision having already been made. TfL would be wrong to think that bus users don't notice that a consultation always ends in TfL doing what it planned to, even if the majority of people responding to the consultation disagree - this makes a mockery of the consultation process.
Even the 'online survey' TfL has asked respondents to complete is (presumably deliberately) misleading, asking whether the respondent 'supports our proposals to extend route 384' without being asked at all about the removal of the service from residential roads and New Barnet town centre/Station. It is to be assumed that those answering in favour will be implicitly assumed to have supported the removal of the 384 from the planned roads, and not just the extension, which is an extremely misleading way of garnering support for both at the same time, and once again shows the contempt in which TfL holds the consultation process. The online survey should be urgently revised to allow respondents to potentially support the extension of the 384 to Edgware while at the same time opposing the planned removal of the service from the roads in High Barnet and New Barnet.
The 384 has always been a bus that runs through residential areas close to people's homes, to enable greater access to the public transport network for people who would otherwise have a long distance to walk to their nearest bus service. It does not go unnoticed that TfL now remarks that residents who are having this access removed would 'remain within 450m of a bus stop' whereas the previous upper limit considered acceptable was 400m - an almost literal moving of goalposts. Now TfL have decided to convert the 384 into a trunk road service, without any replacement for the passengers on the smaller roads that will be left without a bus.
Of course those who will be most affected are elderly and disabled people and those with reduced mobility, particularly those from surrounding residential areas trying to access Barnet Hospital, High Barnet Station, The Spires Shopping Centre and its Waitrose, New Barnet Station, New Barnet Sainbury's and Cockfosters Station. It is all very well saying that new links are being provided to Barnet Hospital and town centres, but links established for 28 years to these places from the residential communities that actually most depend on them are being smashed.
The whole reason the 384 worked so well as a service was because it linked residential roads where people actually live, with these key destinations. TfL says that passenger numbers on the route are 'low', but the reality is that it is an essential route for people living a long distance from other services, but a route that has been (in my view deliberately) pushed into a spiral of decline by the reduction in frequency from every 15 to every 20 minutes a year ago. Clearly passengers care a lot about the route otherwise nearly 300 people wouldn't have signed the petition against the frequency cuts started by Councillor Barry Rawlings on the Barnet Labour website (TfL have previously denied all knowledge of having received this petition).
To examine the impact of each planned 'change to the route' (service removal) and other changes in turn:
- 384 to run via Salisbury Road eastbound towards Cockfosters instead of via Alston Road and Strafford Road
This has no doubt been influenced by a small number of complaints by local residents about the narrowness of Alston and Strafford roads and the fact that occasionally minor temporary obstruction is caused by two buses coming in opposite directions passing each other, even though they are not timetabled to pass here. Of course in 2007 when TfL looked into this, the benefit to passengers was understood and the route kept as it is, but in these times of devastating cuts to buses it is highly likely to be seen as an excuse to remove the service from these roads.
A major reason for the 384 serving Strafford Road eastbound is that passengers alight (and board) at the hail and ride post at the junction of Strafford Road and Stapylton Road to access The Spires Shopping Centre rear entrance, in particular the Waitrose supermarket that is at its rear. Removing the bus from serving this stop would mean passengers would have to walk a significantly longer distance be able to access The Spires and Waitrose, with heavy shopping on their return journey. This is the main shopping area particularly for passengers living in the roads west of Barnet Hospital that the 384 serves. Also the hail and ride post at this junction is the nearest stop to Chipping Barnet Library, so users of the library will also suffer.
Also this change severely disadvantages passengers living in Sebright Road, Puller Road, Calvert Road, Lucan Road, Falkland Road, Wrotham Road, and the eastern section of Alston Road, who would now be remote from an eastbound bus service to take them to High Barnet station and beyond.
How this change is planned to work in terms of established hail and ride stopping places is also not made clear. For example how will the eastbound hail-and-ride stopping post be retained on Alston Road near the top of Wentworth Road if the bus then has to do an immediate right turn into Salisbury Road, or are residents of Wentworth and Byng Roads also to be deprived of a bus that will actually stop? Already drivers on the 384 eastbound refuse to stop on The Avenue eastbound, even though there are usually plenty of spaces to pull in, so where exactly will residents of Wentworth Road, Byng Road, Marriott Road, and The Avenue be able to catch their eastbound bus? Not to mention that the section of Salisbury Road planned to be used by the 384 eastbound has never been a bus route and has tight parking on both sides, so how residents will feel about the 384 being diverted down that road is not clear (will there be hail-and-ride stopping opportunities on that section of Salisbury Road at all?). Or is this a way to bring in fixed stops in these areas by the back door and thus create even longer walks for residents trying to access the bus network?
- 384 to run direct via Station Road and to be removed from Gloucester Road, Lyonsdown Road, Longmore Avenue, York Road and New Barnet Station: Station Approach
This will clearly be a devastating loss for passengers living in these and surrounding roads, particularly those trying to access New Barnet rail station and New Barnet town centre and Sainsbury's, as well as to children and parents using the bus to access Lyonsdown School on Gloucester Road.
The 384 would be totally removed from serving New Barnet Station (Station Approach) with rail users instead having to make a significantly longer journey to Station Road to catch the bus. The 384 is currently the only service that serves New Barnet station from the south and the surrounding roads. It is a huge irony that TfL are giving with one hand by moving a bus stop to make access to High Barnet tube station easier, while taking away with the other by removing the 384 from serving New Barnet rail station and the roads to its south entirely.
For TfL to say that the 384 'duplicates the 326 between East Barnet and Barnet town centre' to justify removing the service from these roads is disingenuous. The 326 only travels down Longmore Avenue in this area, in one direction to to Whetstone and the other to East Barnet, New Barnet, the Dollis Valley Estate, and High Barnet - it is not a viable alternative for passengers in this area trying to reach High Barnet directly, New Barnet station, or Cockfosters, which is the service provided by the 384. Passengers in the area may be 'within 450m' of another bus route, but it is not a bus route that provides at all the same links as the 384. Furthermore the geography in this area is hilly, so walking uphill that extra 450m will particularly disadvantage elderly and disabled people and those with reduced mobility, as they try to reach New Barnet station and New Barnet town centre/Sainsbury's.
- 384 to be removed from East Barnet Road and Crescent Road
This removed section means that the 384 will be entirely removed from New Barnet town centre, which is the main shopping area for local residents, and in particular from serving the large Sainbury's on East Barnet Road. This means even more long distances to walk with heavy shopping, and again the elderly, disabled, and people with reduced mobility will be most disadvantaged. Yes, the current route does somewhat 'double back' when serving Crescent Road and East Barnet Road, but this is for a good reason: to enable access to Sainsbury's and the main shopping area for residents living to the north of East Barnet Road. This change of route combined with the one above would mean that many residents living both to the north and the south of Station Road/East Barnet Road would no longer be able to access New Barnet Station or the shops/Sainsbury's on East Barnet Road by bus. The proposed routing via Victoria Road would miss out what is effectively New Barnet's high street entirely, and it is not clear where buses would stop on Victoria Road - would they stop on a hail-and-ride basis near the junction of East Barnet Road or would shoppers have to walk even further down Victoria Road to new fixed bus stops?
- 384 to be removed from Castlewood Road and Northfield Road
Again this will leave a large residential area remote from the transport network, and access to shops and stations. I believe that if it weren't for the political implications of removing the bus from serving the JCoSS school then the 384 would also be being removed from Westbrook Crescent. However, the main entrance for JCoSS is actually at the junction of Castlewood Road and Northfield Road, so students and staff using this entrance will also no longer have a bus service. Retaining the Westbrook Crescent link while removing the 384 from other local roads, as well as cutting school service 606, would seem to demonstrate that TfL intends to turn the 384 into something of a school shuttle service between Edgware, Barnet and Cockfosters, and doesn't care at all about retaining the local service for passengers living on the residential roads of Barnet that has been established for far longer.
- Extension of the 384 to Edgware station via Barnet Road, A1 Barnet Bypass, Selvage Lane and Hale Lane
It would of course be welcome to have a more direct TfL link between Barnet and Edgware, if this did not come as it does at the expense of the destruction of so many local links within Barnet itself. Because of that, and the fact that the 384 has always been a local service serving residential roads that are now likely to be made remote for the transport network, I question whether the 384 is the right choice of route for such an extension. The 240 for example is a comparatively short route that runs along main roads and could easily be extended instead from Edgware to Barnet, serving Barnet Hospital and High Barnet town centre, perhaps to terminate at New Barnet station where there is substantial stand space, or to the north of High Barnet town centre at Hadley Highstone. This would open up the same new links and also provide new direct links between High Barnet, Mill Hill and Golders Green.
I also think that if it is to be the 384 that is extended, the routing of the extension is wrong. I can see the route, which has become commendably reliable in recent years, now suffering terribly in terms of reliability, with delays especially at peak times on the A1 Barnet Bypass and around Stirling Corner. If the frequency is not increased from the current every 20 minutes (already very low), I can foresee waits of 30 minutes to 45 minutes for a bus. In my view it would be much more helpful for TfL to do the following (the 240 could also follow part of this route if that were extended instead):
- remove the 384 from Whitings Road and Quinta Drive
- extend the 184 via Whitings Road to terminate at Quinta Drive/Aitken Road instead so no roads are left unserved
- divert/extend the 384 down Chesterfield Road and Mays Lane/Barnet Gate Lane. This would provide access to the transport network for residents of the western section of Mays Lane, which is currently remote from bus services
- extend the 384 via Barnet Road, Hendon Wood Lane, Highwood Lane, Marsh Lane to Apex Corner (either with fixed stops or hail-and-ride). This would provide a bus service to an entire residential community currently remote from the transport network
- extend the 384 either via Selvage Lane/Hale Lane or via Watford Way/The Broadway to Mill Hill Broadway Station. This would provide a new link between High Barnet and Mill Hill Broadway town centre
- extend the 384 via Bunns Lane, Lyndhurst Avenue, Deansbrook Road, Edgware Community Hospital (Deansbrook Road entrance), High Street Edgware, Station Road, to terminate at Edgware station. This would provide a direct link between Barnet Hospital and Edgware Community Hospital, and also restore the link between the eastern Deansbrook Road area, Edgware Community Hospital and Edgware that was broken by the removal of the 303 from the eastern section of Deansbrook Road.
- leave the frequency of the 292 at every 15 minutes, as the extension of the 384 (or 240) would no longer parallel route 292 (clearly TfL is very anxious to make another service cut here)
- leave the school journeys on route 606 unchanged, as the extension of the 384 (or 240) would no longer parallel route 606, and besides, route 606 is designed for pupils going to or coming from The Totteridge Academy, which would still be nowhere near the route of the extended 384 (or 240).
Moving the northbound stop at High Barnet station (Barnet Hill) further south
This is the only part of the proposals that I agree with unequivocally, although I still think that diverting at least one northbound bus route (eg the 384) into High Barnet station grounds itself would be even better (the vast underused car park could be reduced to accommodate this).
Passengers attempting to reach the current northbound bus stop on Barnet Hill face a long and hazardous uphill journey, dodging cars dropping off passengers and traffic on Barnet Hill and Milton Avenue. The current journey is so long that I believe some elderly people and those with reduced mobility who live in High Barnet even exit the tube at stations as far away as East Finchley and catch the bus from there instead. This proposal would go some way to alleviating this problem, short of a bus serving the station grounds themselves, as it would mean shorter journey for passengers exiting the station and trying to catch a bus northbound.
However, the moving of the bus stop will be of limited use if the pedestrian crossing across Barnet Hill is not re-timed in favour of pedestrians exiting the station and travelling to the bus stop. Up to several years ago, when pedestrians pressing the 'wait' button, the lights would change almost immediately to allow someone to cross, but they were re-timed in favour of vehicles. I have tested this recently and waited 48 seconds for the lights to change on a Sunday afternoon when the traffic was light and no one had pressed the button recently before me. This is a very long time to wait for pedestrians existing the station and trying to catch the bus northbound, and leads to people risking their lives to catch an approaching bus by running across Barnet Hill between gaps in traffic (clearly not an option for those with reduced mobility). Therefore I would ask that as well as moving the bus stop further south near to the exit from High Barnet station, that TfL re-time the traffic lights at the crossing over Barnet Hill so that pedestrians do not have to wait nearly as long to after pressing the button.
I am also concerned about what will become of the 'Underhill' northbound bus stop as this would not be very far south south of the new High Barnet station bus stop. There is no mention in the consultation of removing this bus stop, but it is an important one for bus passengers accessing Underhill and the surrounding roads, so I would ask that this bus stop is retained when the High Barnet station stop is moved.
Of course there is a great irony in the fact that TfL is planning to improve bus interchange with High Barnet tube station while making New Barnet rail station much more difficult to access by bus, with the 384 planned to be diverted away from serving that station entirely - the closest it would come would be Station Road, which is of no use at all to people living in the large number of roads south of the station that would no longer be served, and of limited use to people living those roads north of the station that would no longer be served such as Crescent Road, Castlewood Road and Northfield Road.
I do hope that TfL will take seriously the points I have made and realise how devastating it would be for passengers for the 384 to be removed from so many roads in High Barnet and New Barnet, and effectively turned into a shuttle service between Edgware, Barnet and Cockfosters, rather than the valuable local service it has been for 28 years. In this time of devastating cuts to bus services around London, TfL nevertheless has a responsibility to those most vulnerable in the community, such as elderly and disabled people and those with reduced mobility, who will be the ones to suffer most if the proposals to remove the 384 from roads in High Barnet and New Barnet go ahead. Please reconsider these plans so that residents can continue to access an essential local bus service and not be cut off from the transport network. I would appreciate a reply to all the points I have made, although I do not know if this is possible when writing to this email address and responding to a consultation.