Cardiff
(under its temporary branding, Coca-Cola) is welcoming international
guests to the only Welsh Olympic venue, hosting some of the football
events,
On
the face of it, visitors to the city should have no trouble getting
around when the delights of the city centre and the Millenium Stadium
begin to fade. The 'valley lines' provide a local rail network far
more comprehensive than we have this side of the water.
On
the roads, there's a publicly run bus company providing most of the
city services. Oh joy!
Crucially,
there's a central 'hub' of bus station and train station right by the
city centre and the stadium.
The
sort of thing that Plot 6 at Temple Meads could provide here, along
with an extra bonus of access to the ferry network too.
As
in Bristol, Cardiff's buses are hooked into a real time tracking and
display system, so passengers get the great benefit of knowing when
the bus is coming. And, better than Bristol, there are various day
tickets covering the city and beyond, valid across different bus and
rail operators (not the sort of thing that FirstBus encourages
here..... ). Cardiff buses are 'exact fare', which reduces dwell
time at bus stops.
Seamless
movement, you'd think. But in spite of a head start, Cardiff has
messed up, and Bristol can learn from that before it makes the same
mistakes at Temple Meads.
Truth
is, Cardiff doesn't actually have a hub. It has two, next door to
each other, but divided by a rather bare no-man's-land decorated with
artificial trees. There's nowhere where you can get a readout of bus
departure times, let alone do it under cover!
The
'information' display is very difficult for any visitor, uncertain of
the city's geaography but wanting to explore, to make any sense of.
Within 12 hours we twice found ourselves boarding city centre buses,
with the right destination, heading off on wide city centre loops
before coming back to the same place for the real journey.
Lessons
for Bristol:
Put
it under cover.... share the ticket/information/amenity services
that go with a major exchange between the different modes. One hall
can provide the departure boards, the directions, the fare and ticket
information. That's what 'seamless' interchange is all about. And
it really does provide the step change in the quality of using public
transport that might actually make it more attractive to more people
than using the car.
It
was (maybe still is) an option in Cardiff; it's certainly there for
the taking at Temple Meads. If, that is, a new mayor can go beyond
the tokenism of previous administrations and landowners and really
make it happen
2 comments:
You should check the West Midlands, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire for great examples of multi modal interchanges! I have plenty of good examples for you :)
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