8 December - No Transport for London Bexleyheath
Three weeks ago
a correspondent raised the issue of the 301 bus terminating in Arnsberg Way,
Bexleyheath and not Market Place (see map below) as advertised by TfL in
timetables and on board the buses themselves. The following postbag suggested
that local bus services are not felt to be reliable in terms of wait time intervals.
The termination excuses offered by TfL were ill-informed but they do seem to have solved the
issue of a bus timetabled to terminate at Market Place most often finishing on
Arnsberg Way. They have named the Arnsberg Way stop Market Place contrary to
what every map proclaims. TfL calls the stops in Market Place, Clock Tower which
is fair enough but that doesn’t transfer Market Place to Arnsberg Way.
Today
I was on a 301 which got to Bexleyheath at 10:15. The Arnsberg Way waiting area was already occupied and the 301 could
not exit Chapel Road because there were too many buses squeezed into the Geddes
Place waiting area (Photo 3 below) over-spilling into Geddes Place itself and blocking it. Arnsberg Way was gridlocked
in a westerly direction by buses that could not get to Clock Tower and some car drivers were doing what Bexley drivers too often do.
Bypass the queue by Ignoring the Keep Left signs.
The driver of the B11 in front of ‘my’ 301 while it was stuck in Geddes Place got
out of his cab and guided his passengers to safety from the middle of the road
because his bus was unable to go anywhere else. The 422 driver (Photo 1 below) did much the same thing
Eventually my 301 found a stopping place where normally the only bus would be
the 96 to Bluewater. The problem then became clear. The Clock Tower stops were
full of buses (Photo 2 below timed at 10:21) with hazard lights flashing because a 96 headed for Woolwich had
broken down (Photo above) right on the corner with Friswell Road thereby blocking it
and the entire bus terminal totally.
Broken
down buses are fast becoming the norm.
It was still chaos when I returned to the Clock Tower half an hour later.
(Note time and the same B12 still stuck in Photo 5 below.) Thank
goodness for the SL3 to Thamesmead which doesn’t go anywhere near the Clock Tower.
A lady observing the situation opined that she had always thought that whoever designed Bexleyheath’s bus
terminals must have been absolutely mad and it was never going to work
efficiently. Maybe that was TfL and not one of the incompetents in Watling Street.
Note five bus icons within a short distance of each other. The 301 normally terminates at the Arnsberg Way icon in top right corner of map.