The 38E is a great link to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary and City Centre for us living in Baillieston who don’t want to add considerable time to our journey by getting the 2. Not to mention the Airdrie section was cut so no longer serves Baillieston Main Street.
I don`t want the 38E "touched". I use it and objected when they removed the Sunday service, just as I did when they removed the no2 Airdrie extension. I merely stated that 38E is not that well used from the Baillieston to Haghill part of the route to merit a 15 minute frequency. Make no mistake, so called FG would remove the 38E and 38B in a heartbeat if they thought they`d get away with it, especially as Barlanark already has the frequent 60 and 60A and 38B is not that well used from Carntyne Sq to Barlanark. For the record, passengers in Cranhill need to cut through that poorly lit park to get the 41, the 38B is not near Cranhill and the area should have a City Centre service. Perhaps the 38E could be diverted to cover Cranhill, I won`t hold my breath.
Not only is the park an issue for access to Edinburgh Road services for those in Cranhill (I was born and raised in Cranhill) but the alternative to the park is the steps at Crawling Crescent which are steep.
Broomhouse, now a massive area, only has the very infrequent and seriously underused Mooedisburn/Gartcosh to Shettleston 310 service. I feel your suggestion would work like a charm, especially if they`re trying to dissuade drivers from using their cars. It would also take the service to passengers therefore encouraging people to use it as opposed to what we have now. I must insist you apply for a post with their route planners forthwith lol!
I think to get people out of cars in certain areas especially with no train station, a city centre bus is an absolute must. Broomhouse is a weird one because it has the 2 at the north end going alongside Muirhead Road and then the 240 and 255 at the bottom of Baillieston Road as well as Baillieston train station too.
Absolutely correct and in our case, the location of Carntyne Station is actually nearer Shettleston, in a particularly dark and dingey location and at the bottom of a fairly steep hill. In terms of Carntyne and Riddrie, the 38B and 46 are the closest services to it but both are hourly at night so there is no real incentive for passengers to use it. Connectivity in general is very poor and I would like to see the 41 extended to cover the West of the City given we lost the 42 years ago. The 38C to Chryston is another service that could be brought through North Carntyne and Cranhill then via Craigend back on to Cumbernauld Road. Also worth remembering that Ruchazie and North Craigend have no local service to Parkhead after the cancellation of the 32 but it`s hard to make a case here as the locals did not use the service well enough although there were major issue with the hopeless route and timetable which was as basic as could be.
The timetable of the 32 was always so weird to me. It started too late for workers to get to Parkhead for their shifts and finished too early for them to get back. When I used it, it wasn't always that quiet but it was just constant concession passes so it would have been impossible to make it break even. Covid and the driver shortages obviously make it unlikely to ever come back though.
The 32 was like a shoppers service for OAPs.
That was definitely the case from my experience. If I had to change anything about the services around those areas, the things I'd look at are how to make the 46 more reliable and are there any missing links that people would actually use?
Before they deleted them, the 8.00 and 8.30am from Craigend were pretty well used but the earlier services from Parkhead were very poorly supported.
Great suggestions Paul. I frequently wrote to First Glasgow requesting that the 32 was extended to cover the Parade, Duke Street and Gallowgate. This was the route years ago when it also covered Easterhouse. However, back then, they extended the 38 to Easterhouse and re routed the 8 to cover the Parade etc and the 32 became toast. At this time the bus had reasonable /good passenger numbers throughout the day but particularly the early morning from Craigend and later services from Parkhead between 5/6.20pm and FG actually had a third bus on the route available, I was told to improve reliability. The 32 could have been a brilliant shopping service and would have given passengers access to rail stations and a great connection for City Centre services. Instead it terminated at the back of Craigend with the the Health Centre and Fort not covered and it covered the hopeless Todd Street where there has been mass demo and barely a passenger used it. They destroyed the service with their constant changes.
Perhaps if that was done the 6A could be extended to East Kilbride rather than having a short working 6 every 20 minutes. Doing this would maintain 6 buses per hour between East Kilbride and Great Western Road while also providing a direct link from parts of the 6 route south of the city centre to Drumchapel.
That would certainly be a good way of getting around that. The 6A going to East Kilbride would probably work better for reliability than the 6 anyway as Yoker can be quite bad for traffic at peak times and the bus lane just before the 6 turns onto Anniesland Road from Dumbarton Road is always full of parked cars and vans.
Baillieston train station is now electrified with a more frequent service than it’s ever had not to mention Broomhouse is sandwiched between walking to Hamilton Road for the frequent 240/255 services or walking up the hill to the 2 which is extremely frequent. I think it would be unnecessary to have another service start there and delay the 38E even more. It’s a simple route which should be kept simple IMO.
I agree with you regarding the 38E. I definitely wouldn't touch it now either. I wonder if people in Broomhouse know what options they have around them. A bit of promotion may help in one form or another as well as the online timetables having route maps so that people can see which roads are covered in each area instead of just having timing points to go by if they're not familiar with the service.
The 38E from Baillieston to Alexandra Parade is poorly used. That`s why FG have deleted it altogether on a Sunday and I will be interested to see if it will be reduced to every 45 minutes like the 38C. Typically however, intransigent FG do nothing to try to attract more passengers and there are options along that part of the route.
The south side of the 38s will probably save the parts beyond Alexandra Parade with how busy they are and the lack of places for turning them around in the east end. The only one I can really think of is at Riddrie at the library or if Carntyne Square was ever used as a terminus. The 38 itself is fine every 15 minutes to Glasgow Fort but even that can be slightly quieter in the east beyond Riddrie.
38E is a waste of resources, people from that area usually use the 900 to get into Glasgow. There isn't much on Edinburgh Rd for them to go to on the way either
The 41 also covers a lot of Edinburgh Road too with the 38E and it's quick enough to be an adequate service. The part of Edinburgh Road with just the 38E is also close enough to Garrowhill Train Station and just up from the 2 as well. I wouldn't say the 38E is fully a waste of resources due to the fact most of the route is more than busy enough though.
I wouldn't say our buses are overpriced, especially given the funding cut and costs increasing. Singles? Maybe slightly but if concession reimbursement wasn't awful then they wouldn't be so expensive and when you compared to McGill's, First's are far cheaper almost immediately. Glasgow to Paisley, for example, is well over £5 for a single with McGill's.
The 262 (previously number 260 with grey branded B7Ls although mainly saw Volvo PS B10Ms) ran out of Buchanan Bus Station and followed a very similar route to the 62 but I don’t ever recall it running through Duke Street.
You could say the same about every town and city in the country.
As you will know, all the social housing in Queenslie was demolished years ago, that`s nearly 700 houses. Cranhill has also been subjected to widespread, mass demolition. The area is characterised by massive, sprawling open spaces and there appears to be no strategy to build on the land. With such a population decline, I guess it`s no surprise that bus services have taken a massive hit. However, people still live there and it`s not a small area by any stretch of the imagination. In the more recent past, in terms of City Centre services, the 51 serviced the area. It was cancelled and a 138 covered Cranhill. When this was removed, the 39 appeared but it didn`t last either. FG have zero commitment to the area although years ago they tried a no 7 then the 29 via North Carntyne and Ruchazie both of which went to Cardowan, another area they have turned their back on.
The 6 from Cardowan is another service I remember, although I don't remember the exact route and there's been the likes of the 32/33 across the east end too. I definitely think that if First actually communicated with the public they'd find a better use of some of their resources. Some suggestions from people are wild but even trialling things for 5-6 months would be something that shows that people are at least being listened to.