All change on the buses
Friday 23rd April 2010, 1:30PM BST.
More than 30 bus services across Walsall will be changed this weekend in one of the biggest revamps of the public transport network the borough has seen.
Passengers will run the gauntlet of new routes, stops and timetables when the changeover starts on Sunday. Some routes are being altered, the frequency of buses changed and some buses renumbered.
Passengers are now being urged to check for alterations to timetables and routes in advance to ensure they are not caught out next week.
Click here to see all the Walsall bus changes
Betty Oakley, aged 71, is chairwoman of Rushall Residents’ Association and said there was widespread concern about the changes among elderly people in the borough.
“It’s very worrying because they seem to be changing everything,” she said today.
“A lot of people are concerned and I think the fear is that some people won’t be able to get to the places they can at the moment.”
She said people in Rushall were not happy about the overhaul of the 355A and 997 routes through Aldridge to Birmingham.
Under the shake-up, the existing 997 will no longer travel along Barns Lane before heading to Aldridge and Birmingham.
Chris Perry, head of operational services at Centro, said: “We understand that these changes will take some time to get used to but, given a few weeks, we believe people living in the area will feel the full benefits of their new bus network and the better links and services it will provide.”
Also among the changes are the current 347 and 360 service combining to a new hourly 25 bus.
The 377 is also to be renumbered the 77 and reduced to 30 minutes, but combined with the 935 it should give a 15-minute frequency between Streetly and Walsall.
The 10 and 10A will be replaced with the 394, 394A, 394B and 395 every 10 minutes between Walsall and Brownhills.
By Craig Hughes
Business Awards
Book a Business Awards table
Join our celebrations of the region's best in business on Thursday March 22 - book your table now
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Express & Star and Shropshire Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases
OUR NEW APP
Get the new E&S app
Download the Express & Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
expressandstar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
NEW ROUTES. TWO ROUTES MERGED INTO ONE. TWO BUSES THEN ONLY ONE BUS NEEDED. TWO DRIVERS INTO ONE BUS DON’T GO SO….. SPARE DRIVERS….REDUNDANCIES.
Report abuse
This along with the Wolverhampton INterchange redirection is going to cause havock with passengers.
Centro really know how to make travelling happy.
Report abuse
All these changes are done in favour of Centro and the bus companies NOT the passengers.
Before I left for Sunny Climes the changed the Codsall Bus times by 5 minutes.
The buses then departed 5 minutes earlier but no one told the passengers.
I complained to centro who told me the new times were on the electronic board at the bus station, which is fine if you catch the bus from the bus station.
Nowhere on the route or on the buses were the new times advertised.
Why would anyone want there bus to depart 5 minutes earlier than normal?
We the passengers were never consulted.
Public Transport my a**e.
Report abuse
These “changes” are being promoted as improvements, however when you look closely all they are actually are cuts. The current 560 from bloxwich to Wolverhampton struggles to keep to its existing timetable, often running 15 minutes late at peak times. How therefore renumbering it to the 908 and extending it through Pelsall and Rushall to Walsall is this going to help? These changes have obviously been dreamt up by people who never catch a bus. For impact look at changes made in Dudley and Birmingham, which were never going to work nor have!
Report abuse
What a monumental mess!! Not a thought given to elderly and disabled users. The only thing that organisations like Centro care about is money and there you have the one and only reason for these absurd changes. The only thing to do is, if you can, use a car and s** the planet.
Report abuse
Has there ever been any change to anything that some people (including the usual vocal minority amongst ‘pensioners’) haven’t moaned about – regardless of its merits?
If you look at the existing bus map of Rushall, Shelfield and Brownhills it resembles a plate of spaghetti, with dozens of relatively infrequent services operating along the Lichfield Road alone.
This Review is a worthwhile attempt to try and simplify the network and boost the frequencies of the remaining services. And research over the years has consistently shown that most passengers (especially the commuters that CENTRO is trying to attract out of their cars) would rather walk to catch a frequent bus service than have an infrequent one pass outside their door.
The Review is also an attempt by CENTRO to bring different bus operators together to work as partners, rather than rivals, in providing bus services in Walsall. As such, I think they are to be applauded for all the hard work and patient negotiation that has gone into making this Review a reality.
Report abuse