New Fences at WY Bus Stations

[Matty]

I have recently noticed that Huddersfield & Bradford have had fences fitted on the outdoor boarding areas like Leeds has had for a couple of months, I noticed today that they have gates on every one that you can just simply push & walk through. Does anybody know why Metro has had these fitted & if they are a waste of space?

[SF07]

Saw them being put up in Huddersfield on Tuesday. I think it's to stop people walking up and down the station outside. Just allow passengers to walk from the bus into the station and vice versa.

[Matty]

Well there is swinging gates at the end of them next to the Bus Station and it is not that hard to walk straight through them.

[Penfold]

Aug 21, 2010 20:10:46 GMT 1 Matty said:

Well there is swinging gates at the end of them next to the Bus Station and it is not that hard to walk straight through them.

One still decided it was better to walk around several of the barriers in Bradford, walking in front of several buses (in the 'boarding' bay) to board mine. When told that they shouldnt really be doing that they just shrugged their shoulders and said they might have missed my bus and that it was a silly idea to have them erected in the first place !

Penfold

[Matty]

I was thinking exactly the same today, one old woman at Huddersfield got stuck outside after getting off the Free Town Bus and was trying to get in the door and has no other decision to walk straight down the road to the next parked up bus which was 5 bays down. If people knew about the hidden gates that I walked through today it would make things a lot better without people getting ran over.

[westyorkshirebus]

It's a continuing result of the Health & Safety being all over Metro after the fatality in Leeds CBS a while ago. Basically Metro have to be seen to be doing everything in their power to stop this happening again.

If someone does get knocked down again, the H&S Executive would be satisfied that it was 100% the fault of the passenger in question.

There's also a pelican crossing installed for the drivers crossing as well. I doubt anyone will use it, but again if a driver was knocked down they'd be in the wrong for not doing so.

[Matty]

It is going to cause more accidents if they are de-connecting each stand and people are cutting across the bus carriage way to get 2 or 3 stops down because the door isn't opening.

[Burnside]

In theory they should work when a bus is on stand, but everything breaks at some point...

[fwybuses]

Waste of money. Should do it at bus stops such as Albion Street, where passenger's face a greater risk off been hit at a greater speed.

[timelesstable]

Aug 22, 2010 19:43:57 GMT 1 fwybuses said:

Waste of money. Should do it at bus stops such as Albion Street, where passenger's face a greater risk off been hit at a greater speed.

Slight difference, Bus Station private property, Albion St public highway

[mollman]

If you really want fences, look at Preston bus station. People used to walk out of any old stand and across the forecourt, so two stands were given up as exits with large fences to stop people wondering too much.

[Matty]

Aug 23, 2010 9:28:00 GMT 1 mollman said:

If you really want fences, look at Preston bus station. People used to walk out of any old stand and across the forecourt, so two stands were given up as exits with large fences to stop people wondering too much.

Yes, Preston Bus Station is mental. I went a couple of years ago and everyone was just wandering straight across behind reversing buses etc. same with the buses, they were just reversing whereever with no road markings to guide the drivers.

[SF07]

Yeah, that did surprise me seeing people just walking across at Preston bus station. Surprised there hasn't been many accidents there. There was a fatal accident once at Oldham bus station when a woman was knocked down by a bus and GMPTE reacted by moving the crossing points and stopped buses turning left at the bottom of the station (stand H)

[danielnew]

Go to Cleveleys Bus Station in Blackpool - that truly would give METRO and the H&S people a heart attack - you are expected to walk into the middle of the bus parking area between vehicles with no pavement at all to board the vehicles making low floor buses pointless as you need to step up from the tarmac! People were pushing prams in front of and behind buses!

[Davidc]

Aug 23, 2010 11:23:50 GMT 1 Matty said:

Aug 23, 2010 9:28:00 GMT 1 mollman said:

If you really want fences, look at Preston bus station. People used to walk out of any old stand and across the forecourt, so two stands were given up as exits with large fences to stop people wondering too much.

Yes, Preston Bus Station is mental. I went a couple of years ago and everyone was just wandering straight across behind reversing buses etc. same with the buses, they were just reversing whereever with no road markings to guide the drivers.

It has been a free for all at Preston Bus station for many years with pedestrians and buses mixing together all around the bus station. But a fatal accident in which a person was crushed under a bus reversing off stand (the driver was fined for not using the rear facing camera on the bus even though the person was in the wrong place) lead to the creation of the pedestrian walkways/crossings on one side of the bus station and the introduction of a one way system for the buses with a speed limit that's heavily enforced by the bus operators and station security.

People are just not bothered about their own safety these days.

David.c

[westyorkshirebus]

Plus the closure of the coach exit, the blocking off of one section of road meaning buses can't go round from the Preston side to the Stagecoach side, and the axing of the layover parking bays meaning buses now need to layover on a spare stand.