As far as I remember it, the station is not over the garage where the issues are. The station opened before the Interchange, so hopefully rail services can continue without issues if/when the bus station has to come down.
Yes the station is unaffected as the garage is below the bus station.
I guess it depends on just how much of the concourse isn't over the affected area. I'm trying to wrack my brains on this, as many, many moons ago I did go into the garage on an open day. But at a guess at the very least the internal stair case / escalator and perhaps the Greggs could probably be brought back into use once the rest was properly blocked off from it.
As you say it is disgraceful and baffling. What purpose is there in hiding from the blinking obvious, that is that its almost certainly going to have to come down? I'm sorry to say this but this is what I expect to come post the general election if a Labour government proves to be as inept as it's local councillors. Everything they touch seems to literally turn to rubble...
Ah right. I left the district a couple of years ago after over 50 years of living in beautiful Airedale thanks in the main because of the way that the district was being driven into the ground. Where I moved to in North Yorkshire couldn’t be anymore different with council’s focus on the whole area rather than just the area around the town hall as happens in Bradford. You won’t get the info that you want about the Interchange, they’re too interested in the mutual back slapping from the Crapital of Culture next year. I was in town centre before the City match on Friday and was saddened to see what has become of our city.
I’m not sure how far it goes over the garage but hopefully the go ahead to at least re-open that side of the concourse and access to the station will be granted after the survey is done. If the weight of humans moving around on that section can’t be tolerated then it will definitely be time to demolish it.
Apparently the signage has been poor for where buses are departing from (lack of decent info from Metro?). It looked like absolute chaos around Nelson Street the other day.
I honestly don’t know what the hell there is to hide. It’s in the public interest to at least communicate. What’s on those documents that they’re so desperate to hide from public view. I have my suspicions that the day it closed wasn’t even in the same month that it should have done.
Honestly I'd say what signage? There's very little at all at the moment, this is supposed to be rectified for the new hubs but no-one is holding their breath on that one. What isn't clear yet is where bus will call additionally around the centre, as most of the information points to just one stop per route.
All I can think of is as suggested earlier that the problems manifested in the previous rebuilding of the bus station, and that perhaps shortcuts were taken that WYCA / Bradford Council knew about? Something very fishy is going on for sure.
Presumably because Bradford Council have just ploughed multiple millions into a scheme to build a new entrance to the Interchange. They are also obsessed with everything being perfect for the City of Culture year including how they are doing about 10 sets of roadworks at once and digging up practically every street. Spending millions on an entrance to a closed building and 2025 having no bus station would be a great embarrassment that they won’t want to admit, at least not this side of the election.
The concourse isn’t over the former garage, it’s on the same level
Lest we forget it was announced last week that they’re ploughing £1.8m into street cleaning the centre of Bradford for CoC year. Also shows you that council tax payers aren’t getting value for money with street cleaning the rest of the time if the Telegraph & Argus (aka the council rag) is proudly announcing stories about astronomical sums of money needing to be spent on this. Shows you where their priorities are. An utter shambles throwing good money after bad at vanity project after vanity project. No wonder they stay quiet about their many failings. The Interchange fiasco isn’t even the tip of the iceberg I suspect.
West Yorkshire Combined Authority have produced a report updating the public on the current situation at Bradford Interchange
Key points are:
- Bus Station will remain closed until at least September when a final decision will be made.
- current lack of facilities at the railway station will be resolved with temporary toilets, information and retail installed in the drop off taxi area. It also sounds like the part of the lower concourse that you would access the railway station through are to be reopened
- Reliability and bus passenger numbers are performing worse YoY compared to the rest of West Yorkshire
- if the Interchange can’t be opened in time for the 2025 City of Culture, three alternative sites are being looked into. The current Nelson Street car park that is being used for layover will stop being available due to redevelopment works
- The Interchange is approaching 50 years old, which was its planned useful life. With long term plans for a new railway station there is debate about whether any long term bus Station would be in the current location.
- The Combined Authority is losing over 200k per month due to the closure
- There is a load of guff about how well organised the temporary bus stops are and how everyone knows what is going on. Anyone who has caught a bus on Nelson Street where 50% of the city’s buses go from just two bus stops, with buses stacking up and loading wherever there is a gap anywhere along the street would dispute these claims.
So wait, the station's design (by which I mean the original concrete structure) was to be life-expired around now anyway? Then given the fact its pretty obvious by now that any solution to save it is going to be a long and expensive job, surely WYCA should have made the call already to get rid and look for a new, permanent solution? Honestly its a joke, especially given that the current arrangement doesn't work too well at all.West Yorkshire Combined Authority have produced a report updating the public on the current situation at Bradford Interchange
Key points are:
- Bus Station will remain closed until at least September when a final decision will be made.
- current lack of facilities at the railway station will be resolved with temporary toilets, information and retail installed in the drop off taxi area. It also sounds like the part of the lower concourse that you would access the railway station through are to be reopened
- Reliability and bus passenger numbers are performing worse YoY compared to the rest of West Yorkshire
- if the Interchange can’t be opened in time for the 2025 City of Culture, three alternative sites are being looked into. The current Nelson Street car park that is being used for layover will stop being available due to redevelopment works
- The Interchange is approaching 50 years old, which was its planned useful life. With long term plans for a new railway station there is debate about whether any long term bus Station would be in the current location.
- The Combined Authority is losing over 200k per month due to the closure
- There is a load of guff about how well organised the temporary bus stops are and how everyone knows what is going on. Anyone who has caught a bus on Nelson Street where 50% of the city’s buses go from just two bus stops, with buses stacking up and loading wherever there is a gap anywhere along the street would dispute these claims.
And yet the council are going ahead with the £43m plaza for the closed and most likely ‘demolished in the future’ bus station. So glad I left the district and no longer provide these clowns with any council tax to squander on failed, failing or doomed to failure vanity projects (see also City of Culture, One City Park, the lake in Centenary Square, Bradford Live, Darley Street Market, City Village, the chaotic road closure scheme, the failed Wakefield Road cycle lane which was never used and caused more congestion/pollution as traffic flow was reduced before the costs of removing it, etc etc….) and yet people still happily vote these money squanderers back in.
www.westyorks-ca.gov.uk
The lower concourse involves pedestrians walking around at ground level with nothing moving above them
It's not halfway up Wakefield Road. It's at the foot of Wakefield Road, on the St James' Wholesale Market site. It's actually very close to the current site as the crow flies. Obviously there is a major impediment to getting there in the form of Shipley Airedale Road, which would have to be resolved. The only way I can see around it would be to tunnel the road so that there is a traffic free route for pedestrians from the station to the city centre.
It's a daft site for the new pie in the sky station as realised when Aldophus Street station closed to passengers in the 1800s...
