On 21/08/2011 13:14, Ken wrote:

The major rail station is east Croydon bus the bus station is at West
Croydon. There is a bus terminal, of sorts, outside East Croydon station

As in the bus station?

bus the 726 didn't use it. Instead, it stopped in Dingwall Road. If you
know Croydon, it's not difficult to find, but for those in unfamiliar
surroundings, it was very confusing.

I can't help thinking the market for people who don't know Croydon but
want to go there from Bromley at 6 in the morning must be somewhat limited.

There are very few places where buses are easy to use if you don't know
the area and don't check up where to go - at least London has lots of
maps and signs to help.

Moreover, I wouldn't call Croydon
the safest of places and an ordinary person might feel rather vulnerable
waiting about in Dingwall Rd.

If they had spent their entire life on one of those remote islands where
no-one bothers putting doors on their hovels, maybe. But if they have
been in any UK city centre in recent years it's OK - it's not even as if
there are any pubs round there. I've been there late at night plenty of
times (until Boris Ate My Bus), and not seen any trouble; it's right the
other side of the town centre from where people spend their time
incinerating furniture shops.

(BTW, the first time I went to Bromley I stepped out the station into a
BNP rally!)

The frustrated passenger would stand
outside East Croydon Station watching an empty 726 go roaring past.

There was an issue with signage, but that got fixed. And it wouldn't
affect arriving passengers.

Furthermore, they didn't, and don't today, haven't any information
concerning the whereabouts of buses at East Croydon. They have that
information for the trams, and for the buses at many other locations,
but not there. it makes it difficult for the passenger to make an
informed choice between tram or bus.

I'm sure there are maps on the west-bound bus stops on the bridge, at
least. A sighted person would have to try pretty hard to not find the trams.

So assuming that the passenger could read the timetable through the
dirty timetable pane, if they arrived at 12:15 for a bus due at 12:00,
they would have no way of knowing whether they had missed it, or whether
it was running late and would appear any moment.

Just like almost every other bus stop in the world. But it's London, so
if they have missed it by 15 min they probably don't have long to wait
for another one (no-one is going to be getting the 969 by accident).

That enabled them to kill a bus service whilst claiming "Your services
are improving".

It did improve west of Croydon - doubled in frequency, chopped some
stops.

You comments about other places are not germane to the issue.

My original point was that if they were getting some extra trams it
would be useful to extend the service. I'd be willing to put up with a
bit of overcrowding in the middle of the day.

Perhaps they should relieve overcrowding during the day, and then
bring back night services to places which have lost them altogether....

They should at least start the tram service from the time the replaced
bus service started, to give some honesty to the statement that services
are improving.

What I would really have liked to see was a train running from Orpington
via Birkbeck and Norwood Junction. Don't tell me, there is 27 chains of
missing rail.

Tram-train would need more than just some new off-the-shelf trams.

I did Wimbledon to West Croydon today (just because it was free). It was
full to Ampere Way, then full and standing to Croydon.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK