Each to their own. The main link lost is Wellington Hill to Westbury: the Cranbrook Road area will have the new Service 72, passengers in Horfield need only do a short walk to Gloucester Road. I, meanwhile, can't recall the last time I saw a Service 20 with any more than 3 or 4 people on it and I think that the route doesn't get much use as there are more direct choices from Westbury & Southmead to the City Centre.
I suppose they could, as a trial, maintain the existing daytime service but remove the evening journeys.
Dave
I've been on the 20 a couple of times in the past few weeks on a Saturday. Each time there has been about 15 to 20 people onboard during the journey. I passed the 20 stop in Lewins Meads on Saturday at about 4:05pm. There were about about a dozen people there waiting.
You say a short walk to Gloucester Road to catch one one of the other buses. But you have to take into account that for the eldery, disabled, and people with problems walking this will take some considerable time longer, maybe about 20 minutes at least which is a fair old walk.
And if I could use another example, of say someone wanting to go from Kings Drive to Westbury, Traveline's suggested guidance is to walk
21 minutes to Henleaze, Lake Road to catch an 18, 501, or 502 into Westbury. As before, for the elderly, disabled, and people with problems walking this would take at least double that time to walk that distance. Especially the walk up the hill on Wellington Hill West which could be quite a struggle.
Additionally also, fit and healthy people with heavy luggage going to Temple Meads or the Bus Station will find it a bit of a struggle and hassle to walk over 10 minutes odd to catch an alternative bus on Gloucester Road or Southmead Road
Ridiculous for a city that is trying to get more of us to use public transport instead of cars! And from next week certain parts of Bristol will have no bus service atall!
Should be really interesting how the fate of the 20 pans out over the coming weeks or months. First Bristol are defending their right to axe the service. It will not be running next week onwards. But a lot of people NEED this service. So something must be done.
I do wonder why the 20 was reduced last year from a Hengrove Depot-Southmead service to just a Centre-Southmead service. Was the Hengrove Depot-Centre part of the service a well used service? If so maybe they should have kept as it was, instead of the new 50 covering the old Hengrove Depot-Centre section of the 20 route? Did First Bristol do this just so they could give the 51 a sister service between Centre and Hengrove Depot? Some other people also commenting that it was a mistake that the 20 was reduced from a cross-city service to one that terminates in the Centre.
The number of signatures on the Petition page now currently stands at 183. Doing better than I thought it was to be honest.