That one-hour trip will take some time
Dec 28 2007 by Sam Wood, The Journal
As transport chiefs announce aims to reduce public transport journey times within the North-East to no more than an hour, Journal reporter Sam Wood sets out to see how long a typical trip can take.
PLANS to improve transport in the North-East to the point where every journey within Newcastle’s “city region” takes no more than an hour have some way to go to achieve reality.
The aim of no more than one hour has been outlined by John Harrison, who is leading transport policy for the region likely to include all Tyne and Wear, plus parts of Northumberland and Durham.
With such a large geographical area to cover and a multitude of transport companies operating in it, Mr Harrison’s aims appear ambitious.
And a randomly selected trip from Ashington, in Northumberland, to Sunderland city centre yesterday showed how far there is still to go.
I started my journey in Ashington at 12.50pm, and faced only a 10-minute wait until the hourly A18 service arrived.
The bus stopped a number of times before pulling into Morpeth at 1.15pm, then headed towards Newcastle with a few more stops on the way.
Among the passengers on the bus was Daniel Gallagher, 20, a student at Northumbria Business School who lives in Stakeford, Northumberland.
He uses public transport to get into Newcastle every day for his course and said: “Just getting to Newcastle can take me an hour and a half on a bad day.
“If the traffic is light it can take about 40 minutes but that is rare. I think things have got better in the last couple of years but if they want people to be able to get anywhere in 60 minutes there will have to be more direct buses and routes.”
We arrived at Haymarket after almost exactly an hour, the target for the total journey, with just a slight delay caused by Christmas shoppers in Newcastle city centre. Then it was on to the Metro, but there was a 20-minute wait for the next train to Sunderland. That also arrived on time, at about 1.20pm, and took the usual time of 30 minutes to get to Sunderland.
I arrived at Sunderland city centre almost exactly two hours after I set off, double the time bosses would like to see. Many commuters could face a longer journey than that. To get to the Nissan factory in Washington would add about another 30-35 minutes to the journey and to Doxford Technology Park would take about 20 minutes longer.
Speaking of the hopes for a maximum one-hour journey time, John Harrison talked of a range of possible improvements, including “super passes” for different modes of public transport, more bus lanes and better freight travel.
Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Authority chairman Dave Wood said: “The 60-minute thing is more of an aspiration than a target. If we are going to get anywhere near it there will have to be more co-ordination of timetables between buses and Metro.”
