Lincoln Central Bus Station unmitigated disaster
If there was an award for bad design, Lincoln Central Bus Station would be the leading contender, if not outright winner.
This week the new so-called state-of-the-art Lincoln Central Bus Station opened. The bus station is an unmitigated disaster.
What are being experienced are not teething problems, these are serious design flaws. Design flaws a first year university student would spot. Begs the question how the plans ever gained approval?
If there was an award for bad design, Lincoln Central Bus Station would be the leading contender, if not outright winner.
The building resembles a regional airport terminal building without the duty free.
Even before it opened, regular bus passengers were expressing their concern in comparison with the temporary bus station. These concerns have proved to be well founded. The new bus station is far worse than anyone expected.
Journey times into and out of the town centre are now several minutes longer. And that is not rush hour. Rush hour it will be far far longer.
The bus station and 1,000-car car park both feed into the same narrow road.
Two large screens are not displaying all the bus times. Destination displayed, but not the route. Same problem at the bays.
In Hampshire and Surrey, live information linked to GPS showing the route is displayed at bus stops. Also in Prague, A Coruña, Athens, Tenerife.
There needs to be at least three sets of these overhead screens not only one near the entrance. There should be one near the entrance, one half way, one towards the far end.
The one and only set of overhead screens of little use if have arrived on a bus and have to change to another bus and have to walk to the entrance to find from where the bus departs.
Where route information displayed it is wrong.
No 2 to Branston display at Bay A from which it departs shown as going via St Giles, Cherry Willingham, Reepham, Sudbrooke, Welton. The No 2 bus route, Washingborough, Heighington, Branston.
As a consequence of incorrect information displayed passengers are catching the wrong buses.
1640 on a Friday afternoon the Information Office closed.
No timetables displayed as was the case at the temporary bus station.
At bus stops, still old timetables displayed. Why not route number prominently displayed at bus stops? The norm elsewhere.
A new bus fleet introduced by Stagecoach, serious design flaws. Seats behind the driver, should be used for a buggy bay. Were the bus to suddenly stop, passenger in these two seats would be propelled out of their seats and smash their heads into the partition. USB charging points low down almost on the floor. Have to be a contortionist to access. On start stop within the city these usb charging points are of little use. Their use is when on a bus city to city. Brand new bus fleet, the video screen displaying no useful information. Why not linked to GPS showing live where are on the route? Why not a display showing next stop? The norm elsewhere
The changed bus routes for Birchwood not acceptable, confusing for passengers, and less frequent, now every fifteen minutes not every ten minutes.
New bus fleet coupled with deteriorated service.
No drinking fountains.
20p to use the toilets.
Floor to ceiling glass walls both sides of the building. One side is south facing. It will function as a greenhouse in the summer with passengers fainting in the heat.
Very congested with passengers. Nigh impossible to walk through the building. And that was mid-afternoon, not rush hour.
The floor after a few days stained from what assume to be spilt drinks.
At the temporary bus station, a gyrator system. Not at the new bus station. Little room for a bus to manoeuvre. An accident waiting to happen. No 2 Bus to Washingborough, Heighington and Branston from Bay A, had to shunt back and forth to get out. It would be even more difficult for the other bays.
Wednesday morning the bus station log-jammed, no bus could move, none could get out, none could get in. A wait of 5–15 minutes from Pelham Bridge to enter the bus station.
A state-of-the-art bus station that lacks wifi.
The only good thing that could be said, is easy to access the railway station.
But even this does not withstand close scrutiny.
At the temporary bus station, the train station literally the other side of the red brick wall. An entrance could have been created. Better still, an integrated bus rail station building with shops. Shops pay rent. For example Reading.
Car parking at Lincoln Central Station for pick up and drop off has been drastically reduced, creating an open windswept plaza serving no useful purpose.
From Lincoln, no direct train services to anywhere.
There should be an hourly service to London and York.
Open the line Grantham to Lincoln, London Kings Cross, Peterborough, Grantham, Lincoln, Doncaster, York.
Had an integral bus-train station been developed at the temporary bus station, where the new bus station has been built, could have been used for delivery lorries and vans to park, to then deliver by hand cart or trolley to shops and other businesses. Not as we have at the moment, lorries driving through the pedestrianised city centre smashing up the surface of the streets.
The bus station has an integral coffee shop, Grand Coffee House. Excellent design, let down by the coffee. Also not very welcoming with a poster on the door telling people it is not a waiting room. Maybe explains why empty, and with that attitude to bus passengers deserves to be. If welcoming, passengers may be tempted to have a coffee whilst waiting. Though if appreciate good coffee unless they improve their coffee unlikely to be tempted again.
On leaving the bus or train station walk into Sincil Street, a once thriving bustling street of independent traders, now turned into a wasteland by the local council in bed with the Coop.
To see what could be, Hull Old Town, reported by Look North as one of the hipster places to be in the country, indie local businesses, not a chain in sight. Further afield, North Laine in Brighton.
This bus station is an appalling waste of public money. How much public money squandered the local council jobsworths manning the Information Office did not know.
The officials responsible should be fired, the councillors who granted approval should apologise and resign. Is it too much to expect of local councillors to actually scrutinise what is placed before them?
According to Lincoln City Council, to highlight design flaws, of which there are many, is to express negativity.
Lincoln City Council claim
Feedback from users of the facility have been incredibly positive so far, with very few issues raised.
This is not the view of bus drivers, it is not the view of the many complaints from passengers.
But then Lincoln City Council would claim the new bus station a success, wouldn’t they?
Lincoln City Council call this a Transport Hub.
No, it is a Transport Farce. They have made the City of Lincoln a National Laughing Stock.
