Friday 13 July 2018

EYMS Bridlington Town Service 5

Just over two months ago, on Tuesday 8th May, EYMS revamped their Bridlington Town Bus Network. Routes 503, 507, 510, 512, 513 and 517 all operated for the last time on Saturday 5th May, and route 504 for the last time with EYMS, and were partially replaced by new route 5, amongst other routes.

The 5 routes from Bridlington Bus Station via Quay Road, Queensgate, St Mary's Walk, Jubilee Avenue and Watsons Avenue before performing a loop via Harewood Avenue, Trentham Drive, Bempton Lane and a small part of Marton Road back to Watsons Avenue and as per the outbound route back to Bridlington Bus Station. It operates every half hour Monday to Saturday daytimes with an hour's gap on weekday mornings and an hour's gap on schoolday afternoons.

Queensgate, St Mary's Walk and Jubilee Avenue had been served by the 507 and 513. The 507 had provide an hourly service, direct inbound to Bridlington Town Centre but via the Old Town and New Pasture Lane outbound, whilst the 513 had provided a service every 45 minutes, direct outbound from Bridlington Town Centre but via Trentham Drive, West Crayke, Viking Road and Limekiln Lane inbound. The section of Queensgate covered by service 5 also had service 510 inbound to Bridlington.

Watsons Avenue was covered by the 507 and 513, but also by their 'opposites' on services 517 and 512 respectively that routed via St John's Street and Kirkgate instead off Queensgate, St Mary's Walk and Jubilee Avenue. Like the 507 and 513, the 517 and 512 operated hourly and every 45 minutes respectively. Harewood Avenue and Trentham Drive had been covered by the 512 and 513 giving two services every 45 minutes, whilst Bempton Lane had the 512 and 513 plus the hourly 503 and 504.

In terms of frequency changes the 5 is a mixed picture, and in some places it rather depends on how much the indirect routings on the old network are considered. It is certainly a major simplification though. Having your direct service every hour in one direction and every 45 minutes in another was bizarre for example.

Not that things stay quite so simple for long. In the changes, the 512 and 517 along St John's Street and Kirkgate were not replaced, leaving these roads unserved. From Monday 23rd July alternate 5's become 5A's routing via St John's Street and Kirkgate instead of Queensgate, St Mary's Walk and Jubilee Avenue. Slightly less simplicity, but for a good reason.

1 comment:

NMcB said...

It's probably worth mentioning that 4 and 5 provide a co-ordinated 15-min frequency between Bus Station and Quay Road (Brett Street/Queensgate junction) in both directions. This is a big improvement over the previous arrangement where, for example, outbound journeys on 507, 513 and 517 often ran together or had half-hour gaps over this section. e.g. between 0900 and 1200 departures from Bus Station were at 09:20(507), 09:20(513), 09:50(517), 10:05(513), 10:20(507), 10:50(517), 10:50(513), 11:20(507), 11:35(513) and 11:50 (517). Towards town the situation was slightly better as both 120 and 510 ran inbound via Quay Road (outbound via Promenade), but journeys on the various routes again ran together with a number of half-hour gaps.