Status unknown
New(ish) bus stop built on a traffic island in The Hollies, Downham Market
Sent to Norfolk County Council 4 minutes later. FixMyStreet ref: 825579.
The bus stop on the traffic island has been constructed the wrong way round.
Please see photos.
The boarding area should be at the far end of the bus stop to enable busses to stop within the area marked 'Bus Stop'. At the moment, if a bus stops so that the doors (at the front of the bus), align with the boarding area the bus obstructs the entrance/exit to The Hollies car park. If the bus stops in the position marked on the road, its door aligns with the dropped kerb making life difficult for users of the bus. The boarding area and the access ramp are at the wrong ends of the island on which the bus stop has been built.
Even if busses stop in the area marked, so that they are not blocking the entrance/exit from the car park they still cause a serious and potentially dangerous restriction of visibility for users of the car park and the road, (approaching from the front of the bus). Whomever designed this arrangement should seriously consider their competence to the job. This is an accident waiting to happen, and this bus stop needs to be removed before it is too late.
Updates
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Hello, thank you for reporting this problem. The bus shelter does not belong to Norfolk County Council. it looks from the pictures as if the bus stop may belong to Morrisons or the local District C.ouncil.
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This bus stop was created by Norfolk County Council. Please do not try to pass the buck over this issue.
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Quote from Philip Schramm, Area Programme Engineer, NCC, 28 01 16, with regard to this bus stop:
'Norfolk County Council has constructed a bus stop on behalf of the bus operator'
You, (NCC) may not own the bus stop but you, NCC, built it, and built it back to front.
If I were, for example, to employ a builder to build me a conservatory and he built it on the wrong side of the house, would I expect to have to pay to put it right?. No, of course not, it would be down to whomever built it so incorrectly to put it right, and the same applies here.
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I have forwarded this to our Travel Development Team for their attention.
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14 06 16. There has been no change to the situation, and as you can see, no further response from the county council.
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I am sorry to hear you have not had a response, I have passed your comments on to the Travel and Transport team for their attention. Thanks Customer Service Centre Norfolk County Council
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Please see below response from Travel and Transport team: 'The shelter is located in its current orientation to ensure that people only access the waiting area from the northern end, where the dropped crossing is provided.
Initially the boarding point was also at this end, but after careful consideration of how busy the bus stop would get, the boarding point was moved to the southern end to help with queue management and to avoid congestion on the waiting area.
The bus will only be stationary for a short period of time, however, if motorists are not able to wait for passengers to finish boarding and alighting, there are alternative exits for vehicular access.'
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08 07 16. So there you see NCC's attitude, which is basically, 'we designed it wrong at the outset and made a change to its layout as we went along, (without thinking about the consequences). It is now up to everyone else to adapt themselves to fit around our mistake'.
The real victims in this are the poor bus drivers who now have to decide how they break the law each time they stop here. They now have to choose to either:
A. Stop in the bus stop, as it has been built AND MARKED on the road, in which case they are contravening safety and disability discrimination regulations by having a large step between the bus and the ground.
Or
B. Stop in such a way that the bus entrance aligns with the raised area of the bus stop, in which case they are NOT alongside the bus stop, (traffic island), NOT in the bus stop as marked on the highway, and at the same time are causing an obstruction and a danger on the highway to people wishing to use the car park.
This bus stop is also a timing point, meaning that, for the bus driver, it is not a case of 'drop and go'. They have to wait at this stop until the time prescribed for departure on the timetable.
If either A or B above were to be pursued by someone who had suffered a loss or injury as a result of all this, it would be the bus driver who would have to take the blame legally.
Talk about passing the buck!
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22 03 17 No change, still back to front, still makes NCC look incompetent.
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Hello, Thank you for reporting this problem, as this was reported anonymously we are unable to get in touch directly so we can only apologise. Upon looking at our map, this area is not maintained by us at Norfolk County Council.
Bus shelters are maintained by the Parish, Town, Borough or City councils, for the area they are located in, this information can be found on our website. Again, apologies we couldn't respond directly to the reporter of this issue and we hope you are able to get the problem resolved.
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