Preston Bus Station

[Andyh82]

Does anyone have any opinions on the newly refurbished Preston Bus Station.

On one hand it’s a shame we’ve lost the ‘frozen in time’ 1970 signage referring to Ribble Motor Services Inspectors Office and the like, but on the other hand it’s good there refurbished it keeping all the original style such as the light boxes above the stands, and the original clocks which are now actually functional.

Also it’s good, I’m my opinion, I know not everyone agrees, that it wasn’t knocked down and replaced by a facility not big enough like Derby was.

It isn’t fully finished yet, most of the old Preston Bus side is still cordoned off, and the coach station is still being built.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I like it as a thing - a monument to when large, confidence-oozing, impressive buildings (even if Brutalist) were used for bus stations rather than on-street stops.

But it's in a completely useless place. It's not near the railway station and it's not near the shops. Really, it would have made more sense to get rid (repurpose, as it's listed so it couldn't be demolished) and build new near the railway station which is at least at one end of the main shopping street.

 

[BestWestern]

Why is it so big? Is Preston really that busy a place?

 

[route101]

I remember being surprised by its scale . I loved the retro signage too

 

[radamfi]

Why is it so big? Is Preston really that busy a place?

Don't forget, it is also an enormous car park, so making the bus station so long means that each floor can accommodate a large number of cars.

 

[Ianno87]

Why is it so big? Is Preston really that busy a place?

Last time I was there, a good one third of the stands were completely unused.

 

[ARN556B]

Why is it so big? Is Preston really that busy a place?

The Bus Station opened in 1969, the number of bus services operated in those days were huge with virtually all stands in use. I suppose it's an object example of the decline of bus services in Lancashire over the last 49 years.

 

[chorleyjeff]

The Bus Station opened in 1969, the number of bus services operated in those days were huge with virtually all stands in use. I suppose it's an object example of the decline of bus services in Lancashire over the last 49 years.

And before thisbus station the Ribble station was very overcrowded, Corporation buses started from stands in thestreets away from the Ribble station and the BBMS and Scout station was a few minutes walk from the Ribble station. It was an uncoordinated mess and must have been a nightmare for strangers to find where buses started and where they went as a result of no coordination between private and Corporation operators

 

[Dentonian]

The Bus Station opened in 1969, the number of bus services operated in those days were huge with virtually all stands in use. I suppose it's an object example of the decline of bus services in Lancashire over the last 49 years.

The same goes for the rest of NW England, of course (and elsewhere), hence why most TFGM Bus Stations when refurbished or replaced have only 75-80% of the stands of the station that preceeded them.

Also, remember that the stands (re) opened so far at Preston will be virtually all that will be provided for the bus station. I think its just Coach stands yet to be completed. The remainder of the site (formerly used primarily by Rotala PrestonBus) is to become a "yoof zone", though the idea that bus passengers have to pass through said area to get to the shops and city centre seems crazy to me. Fortunately, I'm not an LCC council tax-payer.

 

[Dentonian]

I like it as a thing - a monument to when large, confidence-oozing, impressive buildings (even if Brutalist) were used for bus stations rather than on-street stops.

But it's in a completely useless place. It's not near the railway station and it's not near the shops. Really, it would have made more sense to get rid (repurpose, as it's listed so it couldn't be demolished) and build new near the railway station which is at least at one end of the main shopping street.

Historically, this comment would be one of those to quote Thatcher; "Its everyone else that's out of step, not Me". However, you are right that the Bus Station is remote from the modern Fishergate shopping centre, although it is close to City Hall and the recently refurbished traditional Market. The other point would be that, in the past and in common with most cities and large towns, Preston was served by a network of express bus services ie. Stagecoach had hourly express services from the Fylde Coast to Manchester, with integrated links North to Lancaster/Morecombe, SW to Southport/Liverpool and NE to Blackburn/Burnley. Thus, many more journey options could be undertaken without using Rail, as little as a decade ago, than can be done today. The Merseyside and East Lancashire services survive in a diluted format - the latter run by Transdev not Stagecoach. Unfortunately, the Blackpool (and beyond) to Manchester service, X60/X61 - believed to be the most frequent Express bus service in the world back in the 1940s/50s - has disappeared completely.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The location of the bus station was determined by its proximity to the main traffic objectives in the 1960s and the road network. That the Fishergate has been built nearly 20 years later and this has changed the centre of gravity in the city centre....

Of course, some will argue that a bus station must be located immediately adjacent to the train station as a matter of course, and that this is case in <insert name of European country here>

As Dentonian states, the bus station was located in a logical place for the main traffic objectives when conceived (and when rail was seen as a dying mode of transport). I love the brutalist style and boldness of the design, and it's saving is up there with the retention of St Pancras or Marylebone stations.

 

[radamfi]

Of course, some will argue that a bus station must be located immediately adjacent to the train station as a matter of course, and that this is case in <insert name of European country here>

Which other developed European country other than Ireland has separate town centre bus stations for local buses along the British model? What about developed countries outside Europe?

Where is the evidence that a separate town centre bus station boosts overall public transport patronage? When money is scarce, is it better to spend money on building, refurbishing and maintaining bus stations, or on actual services?

 

[52290]

The bus station

Which other developed European country other than Ireland has separate town centre bus stations for local buses along the British model? What about developed countries outside Europe?

Where is the evidence that a separate town centre bus station boosts overall public transport patronage? When money is scarce, is it better to spend money on building, refurbishing and maintaining bus stations, or on actual services?

 

[Dentonian]

Which other developed European country other than Ireland has separate town centre bus stations for local buses along the British model? What about developed countries outside Europe?

Where is the evidence that a separate town centre bus station boosts overall public transport patronage? When money is scarce, is it better to spend money on building, refurbishing and maintaining bus stations, or on actual services?

We've been through this when talking about Stockport as an example. This is 2018, the idea of boosting public transport is 40 years out of date. Outside the South East its all about managing decline. But to remind you of two major obstacles:

1. Growing political (note small "p") hostility to buses in town centres. Forget Euro6+, Electric, CNG etc. etc. Its all about image and propoganda, and the powerful lobbies say buses are the prime cause of urban pollution (BBC) and congestion (motoring lobby).
2. Not unassociated with the congestion argument - where will the bus stops be located?

 

[52290]

Preston bus station is ideal for visiting the Guild Ale House, the local CAMRA branches pub of the year. The newly introduced 114 Chorley to Preston route ,via Leyland, takes me there most Friday Nights and is a reasonable substitute for the lack of buses in the area since the absolute catastrophe caused by the demise of J Fishwicks & Sons.
On a lighter note, before the present reconstruction work on the bus station one of the bay's had its destination as "Germany". I waited ages here for a bus to take me to the Fässla in Bamberg but none ever came!

 

[radamfi]

We've been through this when talking about Stockport as an example. This is 2018, the idea of boosting public transport is 40 years out of date. Outside the South East its all about managing decline. But to remind you of two major obstacles:

1. Growing political (note small "p") hostility to buses in town centres. Forget Euro6+, Electric, CNG etc. etc. Its all about image and propoganda, and the powerful lobbies buses are the prime cause of urban pollution (BBC) and congestion (motoring lobby).
2. Not unassociated with the congestion argument - where will the bus stops be located?

If you prefer, where is the evidence that having a separate bus station means that overall public transport goes down less?

Lots of towns no longer have a bus station. In other places, only a minority of services serve the bus station, typically longer distance ones. Even in places where all buses go to the bus station, a lot of the time there are also stops in the town centre. Preston is an example.

 

[Dentonian]

If you prefer, where is the evidence that having a separate bus station means that overall public transport goes down less?

Lots of towns no longer have a bus station. In other places, only a minority of services serve the bus station, typically longer distance ones. Even in places where all buses go to the bus station, a lot of the time there are also stops in the town centre. Preston is an example.

Your missing the point. Irrespective of the current Rebuilding on the existing site, the arrangement in Preston has been similar for some while. Besides, have you not seen the Media led complaints about the Fishergate "Bus lane" fines, echoing of course, the same situation along Oxford Road in Manchester.
Any *future* plans to replace bus stations with more bus movements and dwell times in town and city centres will meet with hostile opposition from powerful lobbies. Even if they go ahead, the arguments won't stop and it will further increase the hostility between Motorists and Non-motorists as played out increasingly in the Media.

And apart from that, it will probably make bus/bus Interchange less attractive.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Which other developed European country other than Ireland has separate town centre bus stations for local buses along the British model? What about developed countries outside Europe?

Where is the evidence that a separate town centre bus station boosts overall public transport patronage? When money is scarce, is it better to spend money on building, refurbishing and maintaining bus stations, or on actual services?

Apologies for the tardiness of response but I've been at the gym. In response...

I can think of separate bus stations in cities in both Spain and Portugal. Sevilla is one such, and whilst Sants station in Barcelona has a small bus station at the front, the main bus station is not so well served with rail. Similarly, Setubal is an example in Portugal.

As for the evidence on bus stations boosting overall public transport.... Well, that's a fair question though I don't feel it can be treated in isolation.

For instance, you could just as easily point out that...

• Rail patronage is increasing YoY and yet that does both invest in the fabric of stations AND isn't disadvantaged by the lack of integration with buses
• The costs for maintenance of a distinct bus station.... Well, are we not having a bus station at all? What of the on-cost (in terms of PVR) in sending vehicles to a non-central location?
• Why would placing people in a raft of disparate bus shelters scattered across a town centre assist in generating patronage?
  • (Note: I know that many a bus station has been sold for redevelopment but you can pocket that immediately and worry about the impact on passengers over a much longer period)
• Given that bus operators are commercial businesses and are therefore looking to maximise their returns, why would they look a gift horse in the mouth and not serve train stations (esp in many areas where train and bus are operated by the same firm AND don't seek to compete for the same market)?

The fact is, and I'm not going to go back and forth discussing from Aarhus to Zurich, that it is much more complex than a simple binary set of questions as posed. It is more fundamental; even down to how 1960's Preston was realised in relation to how European cities are so designed.

And with that, I must dash. I'm cooking and that cassoulet won't make it's own way to the oven!!

 

[AndyW33]

Historically, this comment would be one of those to quote Thatcher; "Its everyone else that's out of step, not Me". However, you are right that the Bus Station is remote from the modern Fishergate shopping centre, although it is close to City Hall and the recently refurbished traditional Market. The other point would be that, in the past and in common with most cities and large towns, Preston was served by a network of express bus services ie. Stagecoach had hourly express services from the Fylde Coast to Manchester, with integrated links North to Lancaster/Morecombe, SW to Southport/Liverpool and NE to Blackburn/Burnley. Thus, many more journey options could be undertaken without using Rail, as little as a decade ago, than can be done today. The Merseyside and East Lancashire services survive in a diluted format - the latter run by Transdev not Stagecoach. Unfortunately, the Blackpool (and beyond) to Manchester service, X60/X61 - believed to be the most frequent Express bus service in the world back in the 1940s/50s - has disappeared completely.

I was living in Preston in the early 1970s. At that period the centre of gravity of the shopping centre was very much nearer the then newly built Bus Station than the Railway Station, and indeed the area round the Railway Station was very run down indeed. You could walk from the Bus Station under the Preston Corporation side directly into busy and fully tenanted shopping arcades.
In those days the Blackpool-Preston-Manchester express bus service was on a 15 minute frequency on the direct route, plus services via Lytham & St Annes, on top of stopping services to Blackpool every 20 minutes. Most out of town bus routes (and there were a lot of them) had at least 30 minute frequencies. Other express services such as Manchester/Liverpool-Glasgow/Edinburgh were timed to interchange at Preston and could easily produce up to 8 duplicates, with others sent directly up the M6 - no wonder there were so many stands at the "new" Bus Station.

There's been quite a reversal of fortunes post privatisation, with significant frequency increases on most rail routes and drastic bus reductions.

I'd be puzzled to find a location even for a shrunken bus station close enough to the Railway Station to be worth while nowadays without wholesale demolition, given the need for easy bus access to the Ring Road if PVRs aren't going to increase on most routes. Unfortunately the obvious site is where the Fishergate Centre is now, and if it had been chosen when available, the shopping mall would instead probably have been built where the Bus Station actually was built, leading to complaints that the buses stopped nowhere near the shops...

 

[Busaholic]

I met my future wife in 1969, and by November that year we had married, in Preston as she was a 'Preston girl' (literally, as 21 was still the age of majority then.) My first experience of Preston came in that September, and we trekked up from the station to catch a Preston Corporation bus to the Larches Estate, route number P1, a jointly-operated service with Ribble. Being the evening, the service wasn't great, so to save waiting an inordinate time we caught a P3 Lea and walked the last bit. That was where my first experience of local dialect came, as a soft Southerner I assumed the pronunciation was Lee, rather than Leah with a pronounced emphasis on the last syllable. I think the bus stop/terminus may have been in Lancaster Road, but I stand to be corrected. The P1/3 were still operated by Leyland PD2s with, of course, those wonderful Leyland bodies, but within a few months they'd been superseded by Leyland Panthers, an unjustifiably maligned bus imo.

Anyway, I learned then that the bus station was being built, and heard a lot more about it when I .met with some trepidation my future parents-in-law. Vic worked for Ribble, and before that Scout Motor Services of Preston, and was very knowledgeable on many aspects of bus operation without being in any way what could be called a bus 'enthusiast', and was mildly amused by my love of buses. It was a job of work for him, a job he did with a huge sense of duty but absolutely no emotional involvement. His view was that the bus station was a huge waste of public money, and he never warmed to it, being particularly critical of the huge pools of water that bedevilled the pedestrian underpass. Mind you, being an inveterate food shopper, I think he found it useful that there was a Morrison's supermarket in the underpass, and then he could catch the bus home!

My own view is that Preston Bus Station is a brutalist masterpiece and, apparently, still fulfils a purpose. My parents-in-law are, unfortunately, long dead and we have no reason to visit Preston any longer (though 2021 Preston Guild may provide an excuse). Knowing it from its early days, I'd say it was 80% used on the Preston Corp side and, perhaps, 60% on the Ribble side, although there were coach companies using the latter side too: my parents-in-law, who never drove, kindly accompanied us on half-day coach trips to e.g. the Lune Valley or Forest of Bowland, and there were booking offices for two or three of them on the bus station. There was also a café, which was good by southern standards but not wonderful by Lancashire ones!

Anyway, long live the Preston Bus Station.

 

[Karl]

An excellent write up, thanks for sharing. Being a Prestonian I watched the station being built. I still love it!!

Oh, just a heads up, the next Preston Guild is in 2032. Once every twenty years or as they say "Once every Preston Guild"

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'd be puzzled to find a location even for a shrunken bus station close enough to the Railway Station to be worth while nowadays without wholesale demolition, given the need for easy bus access to the Ring Road if PVRs aren't going to increase on most routes. Unfortunately the obvious site is where the Fishergate Centre is now, and if it had been chosen when available, the shopping mall would instead probably have been built where the Bus Station actually was built, leading to complaints that the buses stopped nowhere near the shops...

The station car park (old ELR side) or the Fishergate Centre surface car park would have been the obvious place prior to the building of the multi-storey. Just like the present bus station a car park could have been incorporated into the design.

I believe this was actually proposed at one stage.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The station car park (old ELR side) or the Fishergate Centre surface car park would have been the obvious place prior to the building of the multi-storey. Just like the present bus station a car park could have been incorporated into the design.

I believe this was actually proposed at one stage.

If it were proposed, I don't know how seriously.

It was the other end of the city centre that was central to the redevelopment plans, from Crystal House and the Guild Hall to the bus station and the hotel next to it.

 

[6Gman]

The station car park (old ELR side) or the Fishergate Centre surface car park would have been the obvious place prior to the building of the multi-storey. Just like the present bus station a car park could have been incorporated into the design.

I believe this was actually proposed at one stage.

Isn't the problem that when a railway station is toward the edge of the town centre (which is true of an awful lot of places) putting the bus station there is inconvenient for people coming from that direction? In the case of Preston passengers from the Leyland direction, for example, would be deposited short of the town (now city) centre.

We also need to remember that the main reasons for bus travel (in most places) are work, shopping, leisure and health - not catching a train.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Isn't the problem that when a railway station is toward the edge of the town centre (which is true of an awful lot of places) putting the bus station there is inconvenient for people coming from that direction? In the case of Preston passengers from the Leyland direction, for example, would be deposited short of the town (now city) centre.

Not in 2018. The main shopping destination is the Fishergate Centre which is right next to the railway station.

 

[6Gman]

Not in 2018. The main shopping destination is the Fishergate Centre which is right next to the railway station.

Yes I realise that. But back in 1969 ...

And there are still plenty of reasons to come along Fishergate

 

[Andyh82]

And in 1969 the % of people catching a bus so as to catch a train would have been even lower than it is now.

Any replacement bus station would have been shoddy facility built primarily for retail and with bus operations being a distant second, with not enough stands, not enough layover etc like Eldon Square in Newcastle or Derby Bus station.

I think I prefer that they’ve kept the 1969 bus station and the small number who are connecting from bus to train can walk down Fishergate.

 

[radamfi]

Isn't the problem that when a railway station is toward the edge of the town centre (which is true of an awful lot of places) putting the bus station there is inconvenient for people coming from that direction?

Even in places where the railway station is quite distant from the town centre, it is still normal to put the bus station at the railway station, although not in Britain. If your bus doesn't go to the town centre it is simple enough to connect at the rail station to one that does, and with integrated fares it doesn't cost any extra. In places where integrated transport is important, there is not so much emphasis on people going to the town centre. People connect at the rail station for destinations all over the city.

 

[Dentonian]

Even in places where the railway station is quite distant from the town centre, it is still normal to put the bus station at the railway station, although not in Britain. If your bus doesn't go to the town centre it is simple enough to connect at the rail station to one that does, and with integrated fares it doesn't cost any extra. In places where integrated transport is important, there is not so much emphasis on people going to the town centre. People connect at the rail station for destinations all over the city.

It might not cost extra money (in the future) but what about the time element? What is the point in travelling 90%+ of your journey on one bus, only to be thrown off at the Rail Station, having to walk xx metres (in the rain?) and wait up to 10 minutes, to catch another bus for the last half a mile or mile to the city centre? And you wonder why people drive cars..........

 

[radamfi]

It might not cost extra money (in the future) but what about the time element? What is the point in travelling 90%+ of your journey on one bus, only to be thrown off at the Rail Station, having to walk xx metres (in the rain?) and wait up to 10 minutes, to catch another bus for the last half a mile or mile to the city centre? And you wonder why people drive cars..........

You are assuming everybody wants to go to the city centre. As I explained, people change at the rail station for a variety of destinations. Presumably "you wonder why people drive cars" is referring to the British and specifically the Greater Manchester experience. Buses go straight to the town centre in Greater Manchester so what I wrote doesn't even apply. It may be counter-intuitive to you and probably most people reading this, because they are so used to the British way of doing things, but places which follow the principles I described typically have superior public transport usage compared to Britain.