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Post by cc2005 on Jan 20, 2015 15:36:05 GMT
Following are subject to consultation (from my TfL source):
Provisional changes to Route 7 (25 July 2015)
Route restructured to operate between East Acton, Brunel Road and Oxford Circus, Oxford Street (West side) permanently, subject to consultation.
The section of route between Oxford Circus and Russel Square is to be withdrawn.
At Oxford Circus, buses will stand at John Princes's Street, West Side stand, setting down on Oxford Street at stop OF and pick up on Oxford Street at stop OA.
Provisional changes to Route 23 (15 November 2015)
New Quality Incentive Contract under Tranche 498, yet to be awarded.
Option 2= It is proposed to withdraw route 23 day service (weekends only), between Liverpool Street and Aldwych. The night service will be unchanged.
It is proposed to reduce Monday to Friday frequencies from 9 bph to 7.5 bph.
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Post by Nathan on Jan 20, 2015 15:42:50 GMT
Two things:
1. The Route 7 has already been withdrawn. I'm surprised TfL are even bothering opening a consultation. And seeing as how consultations end up, its quite obvious what the result will be...
2. The Route 23 is actually heavily used during the peak hours, and moderately used outside the peak hours too.
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Post by joefrombow on Jan 20, 2015 16:12:15 GMT
In the RM days I think up until about 2003 route 23 used to run beyond Aldwych to Liv St Monday to Fridays only I think it would make sense to revert as route 11 duplicates can think of quite a few routes that are over bussed outside busy periods come to think of it ..
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Post by snoggle on Jan 20, 2015 17:10:22 GMT
The main concern I'd have with losing the 23 east of Aldwych at weekends is when there are any sort of tube closures or problems then the 11 often collapses in a heap with negligible service reaching Liverpool St. The view that nothing happens in the City at weekends is out of date and wrong. The change would also mean that there was no direct bus from Liverpool St to west of Oxford Circus at weekends. I don't believe route 8 will resume west of Tottenham Court Road so there will be a network gap (another one!) if this option is activated.
It also strikes me that the 23 is becoming one of those services which is in terminal decline. It's lost 3.3m pass jnys over the last 8 years with 2013/14 being the first year in that 8 year time period when there was modest growth.
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Post by vjaska on Jan 20, 2015 18:32:19 GMT
The main concern I'd have with losing the 23 east of Aldwych at weekends is when there are any sort of tube closures or problems then the 11 often collapses in a heap with negligible service reaching Liverpool St. The view that nothing happens in the City at weekends is out of date and wrong. The change would also mean that there was no direct bus from Liverpool St to west of Oxford Circus at weekends. I don't believe route 8 will resume west of Tottenham Court Road so there will be a network gap (another one!) if this option is activated. It also strikes me that the 23 is becoming one of those services which is in terminal decline. It's lost 3.3m pass jnys over the last 8 years with 2013/14 being the first year in that 8 year time period when there was modest growth. Year of the curtailment is just getting started it seems lol. |
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Post by westhamgeezer on Jan 20, 2015 19:07:06 GMT
The main concern I'd have with losing the 23 east of Aldwych at weekends is when there are any sort of tube closures or problems then the 11 often collapses in a heap with negligible service reaching Liverpool St. The view that nothing happens in the City at weekends is out of date and wrong. The change would also mean that there was no direct bus from Liverpool St to west of Oxford Circus at weekends. I don't believe route 8 will resume west of Tottenham Court Road so there will be a network gap (another one!) if this option is activated. It also strikes me that the 23 is becoming one of those services which is in terminal decline. It's lost 3.3m pass jnys over the last 8 years with 2013/14 being the first year in that 8 year time period when there was modest growth. A few points on this: Firstly, it comes as no surprise to me, a source told me about a year ago TfL were looking at cutting/reducing the 7/23 in advance of crossrail. Why you should do this in advance of something opening is beyond me. Yes, we can model predicted passenger behaviour but the best test is surely after the thing has opened, see what the REAL passenger modal changes are....Tramlink anyone??? Secondly, yes the 23 has been in terminal decline, it had quite a frequency reduction mid 2000's I believe and I guess that combined with the walking pace through Oxford St may have turned passengers to other services (if anyone else has any other ideas for reasons why the route is losing passengers please let me know) Incidently whilst on the subject of Oxford Street, TfL have tried to reduce the number of buses through there, but I am sure that the space has been taken up by increased taxi's and the biggest problem of all those blasted pedlo-taxi bike things which have exploded in the last 2 years (how these things are legal godness only knows). Thirdly, we seem to be reaching a change in TfL policy. Yes the 23 used to run only to Aldwych in the RML days, but a lot of these things were ditched in favour of standardisation......a route running between the same 2 terminals all day every day no matter what passenger flows were. This seems to be slowly going out of favour (examples of short working routes like 25,38 etc) with emphasis (in times of booming population and tight budgets) of getting more efficiency. I happen to think that this is a good thing, however it needs to be done right. Fourthly, I'd have no problem with the 23 proposal if the 15 was extended back to (ideally) Paddington or even Marble Arch/Oxford Circus. This would retain the link between the Ludgate Circus area and Paddington and the Edgeware Road. However, I can say for certain that this will not be happening! And I agree with Snoggle, I cant see the 8 returning to Oxford Circus either. My final point.....this consultation will be a waste of time and money. The changes will go ahead if there is the motivation there to do so |
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Post by DT 11 on Jan 20, 2015 20:28:59 GMT
Regarding the 8. I do wonder if the 15 will return to Regent Street as well.
In addition why not have 4 bph on the 23 running to Liverpool Street Weekends.
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Post by sid on Jan 20, 2015 20:38:57 GMT
To be honest I don't really think the 11 and 23 are both needed at weekends between Aldwych and Liverpool Street. In the event of engineering work on the tube some extra buses can always be put out on the 11.
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Post by rmz19 on Jan 20, 2015 21:38:41 GMT
This is ridiculous, withdrawing the 23 on arguably the route's busiest period?....so tourists are going to be left without a bus route to transport them between The City and The West End. Imo it would be logical to reduce the 23's frequency slightly and extend the 6 or 13 towards The City to relieve overcrowding. Since when was TFL keen on withdrawing weekend services on busy Central London bus routes anyway....and rightly so.
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Post by moz on Jan 20, 2015 22:53:14 GMT
The main concern I'd have with losing the 23 east of Aldwych at weekends is when there are any sort of tube closures or problems then the 11 often collapses in a heap with negligible service reaching Liverpool St. The view that nothing happens in the City at weekends is out of date and wrong. The change would also mean that there was no direct bus from Liverpool St to west of Oxford Circus at weekends. I don't believe route 8 will resume west of Tottenham Court Road so there will be a network gap (another one!) if this option is activated. It also strikes me that the 23 is becoming one of those services which is in terminal decline. It's lost 3.3m pass jnys over the last 8 years with 2013/14 being the first year in that 8 year time period when there was modest growth. Strikes me that if TfL are suddenly happy again to vary termini on routes (maybe the public has suddenly regained intelligence?) such as they propose with the 23 then it would make more sense to reroute the 23 on Sats and Suns from Mansion House Stn via Cannon Street and London Bridge (helping the 15 out in the process) to London Bridge Stn. I always found Sats and Suns would produce large numbers of visitors at London Bridge wanting to get to the West End and the only realistic way to do so was to dump them at Monument, send them round to Cannon Street after which they'd probably watch 3 or 4 15s full of tourists from Tower sail straight past them. Moz EDIT: Forgot to say that as it would be weekend only it could use the 521 stand in the Bus Station as that only runs on weekdays. |
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Post by sid on Jan 21, 2015 0:27:26 GMT
This is ridiculous, withdrawing the 23 on arguably the route's busiest period?....so tourists are going to be left without a bus route to transport them between The City and The West End. Imo it would be logical to reduce the 23's frequency slightly and extend the 6 or 13 towards The City to relieve overcrowding. Since when was TFL keen on withdrawing weekend services on busy Central London bus routes anyway....and rightly so. But the 23 isn't busy east of Aldwych at weekends. Another option would be to divert the 23 at weekends to Tower Hill helping the 15. |
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Post by rmz19 on Jan 21, 2015 2:14:25 GMT
This is ridiculous, withdrawing the 23 on arguably the route's busiest period?....so tourists are going to be left without a bus route to transport them between The City and The West End. Imo it would be logical to reduce the 23's frequency slightly and extend the 6 or 13 towards The City to relieve overcrowding. Since when was TFL keen on withdrawing weekend services on busy Central London bus routes anyway....and rightly so. But the 23 isn't busy east of Aldwych at weekends. Another option would be to divert the 23 at weekends to Tower Hill helping the 15. But I've seen it busy at times during the weekends east of Aldwych. The 23 is popular amongst tourists, I sometimes take the 6 at Aldwych during weekends to get home and it is not uncommon to see crowded 23s go past. |
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Post by vjaska on Jan 21, 2015 3:47:38 GMT
This is ridiculous, withdrawing the 23 on arguably the route's busiest period?....so tourists are going to be left without a bus route to transport them between The City and The West End. Imo it would be logical to reduce the 23's frequency slightly and extend the 6 or 13 towards The City to relieve overcrowding. Since when was TFL keen on withdrawing weekend services on busy Central London bus routes anyway....and rightly so. But the 23 isn't busy east of Aldwych at weekends. Another option would be to divert the 23 at weekends to Tower Hill helping the 15. I'm afraid I've witnessed many 23's that were packed east of Aldwych at the weekend - thankfully, I've never used the route during this time and saw them all from the comfort of other much less busy routes I was using lol. |
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Post by routew15 on Jan 22, 2015 0:26:19 GMT
More ideas need to be explored with the 23 option does the eastern arm necessarily have to be cut?
Could the 295 be diverted to terminate at Westbourne Park Bus Garage instead of the 23?
Could the 228 be diverted via Kensal Road, Golborne Rd and Elkstone Rd allowing the 23 to be cut back to Ladbroke Grove?
I personally wouldn't be so hasty to cut the Liverpool Street section permanently. Back to the drawing board I think.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2015 0:42:50 GMT
I knew something like this would happen...the inevitable chopping up of routes because of crossrail/ Oxford street bus ban! Call me cynical but I think there will be more routes facing curtailments. I have a feeling the 3 will replace the 15 at their stands on conduit street (which they are doing 'temporarily'). Think about it..if the 3 can terminate there so why can't the 15 be re-extended? Also, I agree I have a feeling the 8 will not go back to Oxford Street, as tfl are keeping quiet and making sure that the diversion will continue for as long as people have forgotten the 8 ever went to Oxford Circus in the first place. TFL is a business at the end of the day. They will cut corners if they need to, even if this means putting passengers at a disadvantage. As long as its not too obvious and there's a 'reasonable' justification for the changes they will carry out their changes  TFL know that people travel from EAST to WEST and vice-versa on bus, especially when underground fares are so d*mn expensive these days. Also, the number of bus passengers have increased over the past decade? Therefore, by changing bus routes to terminate at new central hubs they can force bus passengers to continue their journeys on other buses making even more ££££££££! For example, cutting busy bus routes like the 15 and 23 in half which will mean a bus journey from to Paddington will cost £3.00 instead of the current £1.50! |
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TFL know that people travel from EAST to WEST and vice-versa on bus, especially when underground fares are so d*mn expensive these days. Also, the number of bus passengers have increased over the past decade? Therefore, by changing bus routes to terminate at new central hubs they can force bus passengers to continue their journeys on other buses making even more ££££££££!