Hospital routes review

[snowman]

TfL have now posted the agenda for the Customer Service and Op Performance committee meeting next week

There is a report with the review of routes to hospitals (not yet read it)

content.tfl.gov.uk/csopp-20170713-part-1-item06-review-of-bus-services-to-londons-hospitals.pdf

[snoggle]

Jul 5, 2017 20:12:46 GMT snowman said:

TfL have now posted the agenda for the Customer Service and Op Performance committee meeting next week

There is a report with the review of routes to hospitals (not yet read it)

content.tfl.gov.uk/csopp-20170713-part-1-item06-review-of-bus-services-to-londons-hospitals.pdf

I'm bl**dy furious that they have withheld the Bus Strategy Paper and have discussed it "informally" in May. Every bleepin' time - I swear they do this deliberately.

Time for a FOI request to be fired in. FOI submitted.

[southlondonbus]

Some could be easily fixed. The 470 extended to Epsom and maybe diverted via the S4 routing to the take in St Helier.

The Royal Marsden could be benefited by the Downs Road/Belmont Station stop having Royal Marsden added to the stop name or adding an "Alight here for Royal Marsden Hospital" so passengers are aware the 80 is less than a 5 min walk from the hospital. Perhaps on the timetable it could say "Belmont, Royal Marsden" as opposed to Belmont/Downs Road.

[danorak]

Don't forget, if you're making a regular journey to work or the shops, there's no problem with having to change each time and use a Hopper ticket. Visit the hospital every six months and you need 'direct links'.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as in favour of a comprehensive and direct network as anyone. But all sense goes out of the window when it comes to buses and hospitals, it's too emotive. This document is rich in the usual axes being ground.

[Eastlondoner62]

Interesting that Newham Hospital is the hospital which has the most bus use in outer London especially considering that the only routes which serve the hospital are the 276 and 376, however the routes which stop outside may also be involved in the numbers, which would make a lot more sense. Also worth noting that the 5s extension to Queen's is being brought up again, I imagine TfL will have to dig up 200 grand from somewhere unless they are willing to publically admit to the locals (not to mention noisy local Labour frontbencher) that they do not have money.

[snoggle]

Jul 5, 2017 21:13:04 GMT Eastlondoner62 said:

Interesting that Newham Hospital is the hospital which has the most bus use in outer London especially considering that the only routes which serve the hospital are the 276 and 376, however the routes which stop outside may also be involved in the numbers, which would make a lot more sense. Also worth noting that the 5s extension to Queen's is being brought up again, I imagine TfL will have to dig up 200 grand from somewhere unless they are willing to publically admit to the locals (not to mention noisy local Labour frontbencher) that they do not have money.

Given we know they have postponed implementing the diversion due to a lack of money that's all a bit academic. I imagine they are holding off updating the consultation page until they can come up with some suitable weasily words.

[snoggle]

Jul 5, 2017 20:46:39 GMT danorak said:

Don't forget, if you're making a regular journey to work or the shops, there's no problem with having to change each time and use a Hopper ticket. Visit the hospital every six months and you need 'direct links'.

Don't get me wrong, I'm as in favour of a comprehensive and direct network as anyone. But all sense goes out of the window when it comes to buses and hospitals, it's too emotive. This document is rich in the usual axes being ground.

You said it! What I find particularly amusing is that all of Mr Dismore's regular gripes about direct access to hospitals are given third level of priority. It's almost as if TfL have thought about the best way to poke him with a great big stick and then run off laughing. I can picture the Mayor's Questions even now.

The interesting thing with this paper is the way that it hands all responsibility for stands, stops and height restriction removal (Whipps Cross) to the NHS which has no money for any of this. TfL have no money for all but 1 or 2 of these schemes - note the sudden emergence of route 96 to Death Valley Hosp because the cost should be zero (only if they can run on Fastrack but it doesn't say that!). The whole paper is a very clever con trick. "Yes we've done the analysis and (sucks teeth) much as we'd like to do some of this there's no money in our budget and we are reliant on the NHS doing their bit too". It sets up a whole load of expectation and then knocks it down flat in a rather bland and understated way.

[southlondonbus]

Tbh the best excuse for not diverting the 5 (and a very valid one) is that it will add about 8-10 mins onto the Journey time which would make travelling from Romford to Barking and Canning Town quote a bit longer which wouldn't be totally fair for regular users of what is quite a busy route.

[vjaska]

I've picked out the two that immediately caught my eye for various reasons:

Croydon University Hospital (Thornton Heath) - Extend an existing route to give a direct link to parts of Addiscombe

I suspect this is some sort of reference to the murmuring of an extension of the 130 to Mayday Hospital Croydon University Hospital given that the 289 already links the main part of Addiscombe to the hospital.

Kings College Hospital (Denmark Hill) - Traffic congestion in the area results in extended journey times and so bus priority measures could be implemented

The hospital of my birth and my local one, well good luck implementing any bus priority measures given Coldharbour Lane & Denmark Hill already both have a bus lane towards Camberwell avoiding most of the traffic other than right at the junction between the two roads. I suppose it will end up with something like at Stockwell if implemented where buses start ahead of the rest of the traffic?

I also notice every hospital in Table 2 except for my local one is listed as some sort of new bus route being needed - so they've included that King's College is an exception to this? Before anyone says, I'm not asking for any new links, just musing as to why this is an exception.

[COBO]

St Mary’s Hospital (Paddington) Provide links to the Elizabeth line. All the routes that run outside St Mary's Hospital will all be providing a link to the Elizabeth Line.

[stuckonthe486]

Every time I see things about buses and hospitals I think of Peter Hendy complaining about Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Woolwich Common, which replaced the fairly well-located Greenwich District Hospital and the okay-located Brook Hospital a little down the road. He did it in a press interview at least a decade ago, but he did it again at the London Assembly in 2014.

www.london.gov.uk/LLDC/documents/s37204/Minutes%20-%20Appendix%201%20-%20Transcript.pdf (page 35)

We have published a document about transport and health which we believe to be the first strategy linking the two that any transport authority anywhere has ever done. It has various things in it about personal health, walking, exercise and so on, but it also has this issue about the location of health facilities.

It is a problem and you heard in your inquiry that it is a problem. One of the problems, frankly, is that those decisions in the health service are taken for property value purposes and not for public access purposes.
One of the things that continues to be a real issue for us is that very often it produces some very difficult journeys for people but in relatively low numbers. That in bus service terms is a problem. I spent a long time ten years ago explaining what difficulty the Queen Elizabeth Hospital gave us. It was south of Woolwich by some margin and it replaced facilities in central Woolwich (think he means Greenwich) which were really elegantly well-served by the existing bus service. It cost us £2 million or £3 million a year, by memory, to serve the Queen Elizabeth Hospital half decently. Some of the moves that are now taking place are making it very difficult for ordinary people to access these places. The health service does not have a mechanism, though we have offered them one. You will see if you look at the document that we have a tool that you can use to assess the transport effects of moving health services. Not all of them choose to use it and, almost uniquely, we never get any money out of it to run more or different services. We are left with Leon Daniels and John Barry and his people trying to manipulate the existing service to best serve these changing demands. It is really very difficult.

The move at one stage with Lord Darzi’s previous proposals toward more healthcare located in the community was, as far as we were concerned, extremely good. If you locate those services in shopping centres and parades, it is really quite a good place for public transport to serve. These vast hospital sites, some of which are former mental asylums and isolation hospitals, in greenfield areas might be dead cheap to build medical facilities on but they are bloody useless to serve by bus. It is a real problem for us.

I think the QEH move was already under way when the mayoralty and TfL was being established, although the shipping out of a lot of Bexley borough patients to Darent Valley came later. It's still a massive weakness in London's governance that healthcare/ transport are clearly still not on the same page - and those at the top seem too weak to push for change.

[snoggle]

Jul 6, 2017 0:26:12 GMT stuckonthe486 said:

Every time I see things about buses and hospitals I think of Peter Hendy complaining about Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Woolwich Common, which replaced the fairly well-located Greenwich District Hospital and the okay-located Brook Hospital a little down the road. He did it in a press interview at least a decade ago, but he did it again at the London Assembly in 2014.

www.london.gov.uk/LLDC/documents/s37204/Minutes%20-%20Appendix%201%20-%20Transcript.pdf (page 35)

I've heard Hendy, Daniels and Mark Threapleton from Stagecoach [1] all repeat the same theme in different Assembly meetings. This has been going on for years and no one pays any attention. Assembly Members and Councillors berate TfL all the time about hospital access simulatenously whingeing about NHS reorganisation which is not TfL's responsibility. TfL dutifully "try and do the right thing" despite it being a thankless task and we go round this loop yet again. As you say it's all rather unsatisfactory and the governance is not where it should be.

[1] talking about the 96 surprise, surprise.

[planesandtrains]

Well the Epsom Hospital is an easy one, extend the 406 to Kingston Hospital, slightly worried though that there is limited room with the K2 and K4 already standing there,

[Eastlondoner62]

Jul 5, 2017 23:03:37 GMT southlondonbus said:

Tbh the best excuse for not diverting the 5 (and a very valid one) is that it will add about 8-10 mins onto the Journey time which would make travelling from Romford to Barking and Canning Town quote a bit longer which wouldn't be totally fair for regular users of what is quite a busy route.

I don't think it will add that much of journey time on, countless times I've been behind a 175 at Romford Station then the bus manages to beat us to Norwood Avenue. 

[Nathan]

Jul 6, 2017 8:39:15 GMT planesandtrains said:

Well the Epsom Hospital is an easy one, extend the 406 to Kingston Hospital, slightly worried though that there is limited room with the K2 and K4 already standing there,

You could cut back the K2 to Cromwell Road to allow room for the route.