First Manchester

[Mayneway]

RE: First Manchester

(13/01/2019 19:39)Solo40336 Wrote:  With the 415s being my sole mode of transport for several years, it used to be a busy, decent route, 15 Minute service from Middleton to Holt's required 7 buses, and it failing to show up happened, but was uncommon when the Crusader Darts dominated the route. In the space of a couple of years it's been decimated to a once an hour and regularly fails to turn up. The fact it's now unused is down to Firsts cut backs. Most people on Alkrington Estate catch the 125 now, same frequency but rarely shows up late or not at all. There's calls all over the estate for Stagecoach to extend the 114 into Middleton via The Current 415 route. I caught a few B7 Eclipses on the route in the past, that didn't struggle to get under the bridge. While Stagecoach's MAN's and Enviro 300's regularly used the bridge without issue running out of Middleton Depot, rerouting the 415 down several major roads that commonly suffer traffic problems will just kill the service even more.

Stagecoach will never extend the 114 as they don't like to 'directly' compete with First but it's a shame because there is a demand and like you say if users had a regular service that actually turned up on time people would use it.