Park & Ride

In yesterdays Evening News there was an article about how the new site as Straiton is only manned at certain hours of the day i.e. peak times and so could be unattractive to people using it given that they would have to wait outside the waiting room area for a bus to arrive, I thought maybe it was a mistake and that even when unmanned there would still be access to the seating area etc - But no. This morning just after 8am the building appeared to be completely locked up with many folks just standing about waiting on the bus coming. Surely this is a joke, and an unfunny one at that, why spend money building a waiting room facility and not actually have it available for the public to use?

But it is the cooncil (not Midlothian this time but Edinburgh) and they like these kind of jokes, especially at taxpayers expense!!!
Remember that the executives who come up with these schemes get paid £100k + so they obviously know what they are doing

You can see the Evening News article here http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/latestnews/City-park-and-ride-39is.4653496.jp So far I think that they appear to have been over optimistic about how many cars would use the car park. Perhaps it may improve over Christmas.

Seems it's not just Edinburgh but our own dear Midlothian Cooncil too - apparently the park and ride at Sheriffhall has the same problem. The waiting room bit is only open at peak times, so god help any poor sod who needs a pee outwith those times, or would like to wait for a bus out of the wind and rain!

I see that more people appear to be using the Park and Ride at Straiton now, judging by the number of cars there but the lack of shelter is ridiculous. To choose one of the windiest places around and then not even provide standard bus shelters is completely stupid, especially with the money spent on the thing. The "terminal building" looks very nice but if it is closed for most of the time then what is the point.
Perhaps we need to get the people who made the decisions and make them stand outside it all day, especially when the real winter weather gets here!

http://www.midlothianadvertiser.co.uk/news/Anger-over-Midlothian-park-and.4690371.jp

The article above shows that many people are also not happy about the limited opening hours.
Anyone else found that the Scotsman and Evening News websites have been out of action since Friday?

I can't say that I've had any problems with the Scotsman/Evening news websites. I usually check them at least once a day but maybe I've just been lucky.

Oh no! Midlothian Council now want to build another park and ride site, this time at Lothianburn - info at:
http://www.fairmileheadcc.org.uk/Lothianburn%20Park%20and%20Ride/Lothianburn%20P&R%20Statement.pdf

Obviously they have way too much money too spare since the Straiton one does not appear to have been a huge success so far (you only have to look at the number of empty spaces there).

First offer a £1.50 return ticket for folk using the Park & Ride from Sherrifhall into Edinburgh, maybe if a similar incentive was to be used from Straiton by Lothian then maybe the numbers using it would increase..

A good article in the Evening News reports that both the Straiton and Sheriffhall park and rides are not being very successful. Straiton seems to be only getting 25% of spaces used which is not very good for a £4.5 million investment.


http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/latestnews/Plenty-of-room-to-manoeuvre.5120632.jp

Well, probably due to the festival the park and ride at Straiton seems to be doing very good business. On the other hand due to the tram works and possibly the festival, it is taking me about 10 minutes to travel on the bus from the junction of London road/Leith walk to Waterloo place Last night as the bus was waiting to drop me off at the Waverley market I saw an X47, 37 and two 47s waiting to turn up on to the North bridge. I thought that I would have to wait ages for another. However, I arrived at the Scotsman building just in time for an X47 closely followed by a 47. Although I took the X47 I wish I had taken the other one as the bus eventually broke down at Bilston

There seem to be plenty of tourists using the Park and Ride now - easy to spot as they try to get on the Penicuik bus to go in to Edinburgh.
I expect people won't be so happy now that they have to wait half an hour between buses or one hour on Sundays.

It's good to see it being used, one thing that would be useful though would be something on the front of the buses that tells passengers it serves the park & ride.

musicman wrote:

It's good to see it being used, one thing that would be useful though would be something on the front of the buses that tells passengers it serves the park & ride.

A very sensible idea - so there is no way they will do it!!!

Can you believe it! Tonight I caught the X47 and as we reached Liberton the same alarm as last night came back on again. When we reached the park and ride the driver came upstairs to tell us that the bus wasn't going any further. Just as he finished the alarm stopped and thankfully he decided to go on. The alarm did come back on again around Bilston but at least I managed to reach my bus stop without another disruption.

Ahh that takes me back to when I used to be a commuter!!! I remember at one time most of the buses to Penicuik used to pack in with the overheating alarm around Bilston because they were not used to travelling for long distances without stopping all the time. I imagine it was one of the older buses that they seem to use on the X47 nowadays which packed in?

That's probably the bus that was sitting at Beeslack last night then. I mind a few years back on the old X78 the bus broke down leaving Penicuik in the morning then the same bus broke down on the same service heading back to Penicuik at night!

I'm trying out my new Vodafone dongle for my netbook tonight and so far the bus has made it to Bilston

Nice, live travel updates

Did yez ever get back hame adim ?

Yeah, I made it home and there seems to be some improvement on the time it takes the buses to travel up Leith walk.

Travelling on the buses in to Edinburgh from Penicuik seems to be getting slower than ever now. On Saturday I got on the 37 as the 47 had not appeared yet and when I saw it coming along behind my bus, swapped over at Glencorse which turned out to a bad move. Due to the large number of people getting on at the Park and Ride (caused by the half hour gap between services) the 37 got well ahead of the 47. It now takes around 1 hour to get in to the bridges and if you want to go further, then it can be 15 to 20 minutes to get from the Balmoral to the West End.
Of course once the trams are ready all will be so much better!!!

Last night after getting off the no 16 bus in St Andrew's square, I walked over to the bus stop on the other side of the square. As I approached George street I thought I had missed a 47 which was going round the corner. However, by the time I reached the bus stop an X47 arrived followed by another X47 which was in turn followed by a 47 There certainly seems to be no shortage of Penicuik buses around half past four in the evening.

I see that Straiton P&R has now become a caravan park! There were 6 vans parked there when I passed through today, which could be the same ones who were in the fields behind the site recently.
I wonder how long it will take the cooncil to move on these so-called "travelling people"???

I'm sure last Friday night there were the caravans you mention plus the ones on the other side of the fence..