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East West rail, Bletchley to oxford line


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43 minutes ago, Davexoc said:

It isn't centreless,

 

It has the Central MK district, but it is deliberately far less "centre oriented" than any "normal" place. I put "centreless" in "..." because it was the least-worst word I could come up with. There isn't a single supermarket, or a hardware shop in the central shopping centre, for instance, because that is largely about clothes and non-essentials, and there are significant employment locations spread across the city.

 

As to the bus service needing to notch-up, it does, but I still believe that thinking in terms of "bus" as we normally conceive of "bus" will never really be able to offer practical transport that is more attractive than the private car in a city that was structured around the private car - it needs different solutions.

 

The key issue is that nobody much likes walking any distance in the rain and dark to/from bus-stops at each end of every trip; we all like door-to-door transport. In a densely populated city it isn't too hard to put a bus route within say 300m of every front door; try doing that in MK and see what the bus route map and trip times look like, then the challenge becomes clear.

 

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6 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

It has the Central MK district, but it is deliberately far less "centre oriented" than any "normal" place. I put "centreless" in "..." because it was the least-worst word I could come up with. There isn't a single supermarket, or a hardware shop in the central shopping centre, for instance, because that is largely about clothes and non-essentials, and there are significant employment locations spread across the city.

 

As to the bus service needing to notch-up, it does, but I still believe that thinking in terms of "bus" as we normally conceive of "bus" will never really be able to offer practical transport that is more attractive than the private car in a city that was structured around the private car - it needs different solutions.

 

The key issue is that nobody much likes walking any distance in the rain and dark to/from bus-stops at each end of every trip; we all like door-to-door transport. In a densely populated city it isn't too hard to put a bus route within say 300m of every front door; try doing that in MK and see what the bus route map and trip times look like, then the challenge becomes clear.

 

 

MK has Sainsburys in the centre, and Morrisons near the station, and then if you look at Aylesbury and High Wycombe, they don't have everything in the centre, both having developed out of town retail parks, as have most places. The difference with MK is the grid roads, so I guess Telford must have similar problems.

 

As for people walking, my daughter walks 500 yards to take my grandson to school in the mornings, past someones house who drives her child to the same school. Until via GPS tracking, people are charged for unnecessary journeys, getting some to walk will be difficult. They would much rather get their exercise after driving down the gym......

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Unfortunately some of the more recent developments in MK have seen a drift away from the grid road system.

 

Likewise, keeping pedestrians and vehicles separate in the centre went to pot when they filled in all the underpasses outside the new Sainsburys store.

 

And it seems beyond the wit of some people to recognise that a lot of the bus delays are the result of poorly maintained traffic light systems. It is so easy to sit at a red light and wait upwards of a minute with no traffic crossing the said junction.

 

A while ago Arriva introduced an express bus between MK and Aylesbury (route 100) on top of the more sedate local service (via Leighton Buzzard). The 100 then had additional stops added and was finally withdrawn to be replaced even later by a "fast" route X60 via Buckingham to provide 2 buses per hour between MK and Aylesbury. Just recently I have become aware of a new express service provided by a smaller operator so one presumes there must be a definable traffic flow between the two or between one of the via points and either of the two termini.

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16 hours ago, lmsforever said:

MK is indeed a spread out city  back in the seventies I visited at least once a month on business  it seemed to have added new houses and roads causing me to lose my way regularily.

Were the grid roads not numbered V & H back then? This system takes no more than a minute to understand & makes it impossible to get lost.

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Don't you believe it. I only cycled through MK once trying to find the Youth Hostel (which is, or was then, in the old village, a rather nice area). The V and H system was completely confusing. I might know which direction I was going but not where I would get to.

Anyway, who is going to cycle up a vertical road!

Jonathan

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9 hours ago, Davexoc said:

 

MK has Sainsburys in the centre, and Morrisons near the station, and then if you look at Aylesbury and High Wycombe, they don't have everything in the centre, both having developed out of town retail parks, as have most places. The difference with MK is the grid roads, so I guess Telford must have similar problems.

 

As for people walking, my daughter walks 500 yards to take my grandson to school in the mornings, past someones house who drives her child to the same school. Until via GPS tracking, people are charged for unnecessary journeys, getting some to walk will be difficult. They would much rather get their exercise after driving down the gym......

Most towns have seen their shopping centres moved to out of town retail parks. MK is effectively a town built around a retail park, but one which is still very active.

Most towns have seen their supermarkets, DIY stores & cinemas move away from the town centre to somewhere with plenty of parking, which from a bus point of view, is fine if you live on the same side of town, but annoying if you don't.

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3 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Don't you believe it. I only cycled through MK once trying to find the Youth Hostel (which is, or was then, in the old village, a rather nice area). The V and H system was completely confusing. I might know which direction I was going but not where I would get to.

Anyway, who is going to cycle up a vertical road!

Jonathan

It is only confusing to people prejudiced against it in the first place, as your second comment proves you were.

The roads all have names too, just like in any other town...the numbering system also provides a second logical way to describe them.

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9 hours ago, Davexoc said:

MK has Sainsburys in the centre, and Morrisons near the station


My point was that the ‘big shopping centre’ that people tend to think of when they think MK has no supermarkets - the natural central bus focus point can’t sell you a loaf of bread any more (well, possibly a super-fancy Italian artisanal treat). A pair of £300 shoes, yes, a loaf of bread, no. Sainsbury is fairly close to bus stops, but Morrison’s is a fair schlepp from buses if carrying a weekly shop. And then you have a similar schlepp at the other end from bus stop to front door.

 

Castigating people for not walking simply doesn’t cause them to walk and use public transport if they have a personal car ....... the ‘not personal car’ alternative has to be attractive enough to lure people out of their cars.

 

Anyway, we are to peril of boring everyone with the micro-detail of MK’s internal transport conundrum, when the thread is meant to be about inter-urban transport.

 

As to Aylesbury-MK travel: my gut feel is that there is latent demand for Aylesbury to WCML travel, and there is definitely a small but steady MK to Stoke Mandeville Hospital demand.

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I'm not familiar with MK, but the Streets & Avenues grid system in New York (well, Manhattan) makes it one of the easiest cities to navigate that I've ever been to. I don't see any fundamental difference between that and a V&H nomenclature.

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Cornelius

 

If you cycle on the V and H roads, your only destination will be a mortuary slab ....... they sure as heck aren’t cycling friendly.

 

There is, however, and absolutely excellent network of shared-use cycle/walking routes, the density of which is visible if you turn on the ‘cycling’ options in google maps.

 

The YH has never been in MK Village; it’s in one of the other long-histories villages subsumed into the city.

 

Kevin

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2 minutes ago, Zomboid said:

I'm not familiar with MK, but the Streets & Avenues grid system in New York makes it one of the easiest cities to navigate that I've ever been to. I don't see any fundamental difference between that and a V&H nomenclature.

It is based on New York's Streets & Avenues system, which a few tweaks intended to improve traffic flow, like roundabouts instead of crossroads.

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Thanks Nearholmer. I had a feeling when I typed that I had the village name wrong. But it was a very pretty village.The problem as I remember it from a good many years ago was that coming as a stranger to the city I was not familiar with the cycle routes though I knew they existed, and it was before mobile phones.

If I am biased against MK, it is not the architecture but the concept of a city designed to be reliant on private transport. Even then I thought it was wrong.

But enough. Let's hope for progress with the railway rather faster than the usual snail's pace we seem to manage with most projects.

Jonathan

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Just now, rodent279 said:

Maybe instead of building on a grid plan, new towns should be built in a series of concentric rings?

That would have some organisation to it, but if I lived just inside ringway 2 & wasn't quite sure which way you are approaching from (A5 has 4 junctions in MK & M! has J13 & J14, both of which provide access to MK), how would I describe which way to turn when you go there?

The grid allows a road to be closed without warning. I can't think of anywhere else where this would not cause a problem.

 

Anyway, as Nearholmer said earlier, we seem to have drifted from the topic of the Oxford-Bletchley rebuild..

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Saw a note abut Aylesbury to MK  trains might be extension of Marylebone High Wycombe services but might change  to M/bone Aylesbury but no definite plans it seems.Might all change if we get a new operator when franchise renewal happens hope its not Abello or First plus some strange co operator.

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Chiltern have previously expressed an interest in getting access to OOC when HS2 comes along, which would seem like a sensible destination for the MK via Little Kimble trains if it turns out to be possible. Though I'd also expect the service via Amersham to be a better bet unless they're going to double the Princes Risborough to Aylesbury line.

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23 hours ago, Covkid said:

. Back in 2014 Arriva created a new Diamond bus route from Cannock to Walsall, the West Midlands boundary being just north of Bloxwich. New 64 plate Streetlite single deckers were branded for the route 1 and 2, but that was all swept away last year when the route was de Diamondised, Streetlites sent to Derby and old 06 plate "bangers" replaced.  Admittedly NXWM came along n competition and have taken most of the custom with new Enviro "Platinum"s.

 

 

:offtopic:

Pedantry alert:

Diamond is a bus company, part of Rotala group.

Arriva's "up market" offerings are "Sapphire"

NXWM are slowing working their way outwards from the main WM conurbation, Lichfield being a recent addition to Platinum routes.

If Arriva weren't operating the Sapphire 110 to Tamworth, I would expect NXWM to be operating it with Platinum buses.

Note many of these non WM communities are associates of the TfWM body.

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8 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Cornelius

 

If you cycle on the V and H roads, your only destination will be a mortuary slab ....... they sure as heck aren’t cycling friendly.

 

There is, however, and absolutely excellent network of shared-use cycle/walking routes, the density of which is visible if you turn on the ‘cycling’ options in google maps.

 

The YH has never been in MK Village; it’s in one of the other long-histories villages subsumed into the city.

 

Kevin

The YH is in Bradwell - as Nearholmer says, it would be suicidal to try and cycle there using V&H routes. The best way to get there on a cycle is to use the red painted underpaths that run parallel to the V&H roads whilst keeping just to the east of the railway line between MK and Wolverton.

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35 minutes ago, Arun Sharma said:

The YH is in Bradwell - as Nearholmer says, it would be suicidal to try and cycle there using V&H routes. The best way to get there on a cycle is to use the red painted underpaths that run parallel to the V&H roads whilst keeping just to the east of the railway line between MK and Wolverton.

It's a nice hostel.

An even better way is to keep to the west of the railway and cut through the old cattle creep that brings you out just across a field from the hostel.

Navigation in MK is easy, once you know how things work. 

Bernard

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35 minutes ago, Arun Sharma said:

The YH is in Bradwell - as Nearholmer says, it would be suicidal to try and cycle there using V&H routes. The best way to get there on a cycle is to use the red painted underpaths that run parallel to the V&H roads whilst keeping just to the east of the railway line between MK and Wolverton.

It's a nice hostel.

An even better way is to keep to the west of the railway and cut through the old cattle creep that brings you out just across a field from the hostel.

Navigation in MK is easy, once you know how things work. 

Bernard

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7 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

A picture for Bernard.

 

The river through the tunnel below the wooden walkway is the haunt of Crayfish.

 

 

 

 

 

That's the place.

The wooden planks are lethal when wet so take care if any one wants to check it out.

Benard

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14 hours ago, melmerby said:

:offtopic:

Pedantry alert:

Diamond is a bus company, part of Rotala group.

Arriva's "up market" offerings are "Sapphire"

NXWM are slowing working their way outwards from the main WM conurbation, Lichfield being a recent addition to Platinum routes.

If Arriva weren't operating the Sapphire 110 to Tamworth, I would expect NXWM to be operating it with Platinum buses.

Note many of these non WM communities are associates of the TfWM body.

 

Of course !!! Got my precious gemstones mixed up.  Thanks for the correction.

 

And yes, wouldn't mind betting the 110 will become the X110 with Platinums fairly soon.  

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