National Express Coach Station in Liverpool to close

[JamesR19]

RE: National Express Coach Station in Liverpool to close

(17/02/2016 19:53)Dentonian Wrote:  I'm sorry, but the more I read about this, the dafter it seems.

1. "Only" 20 minutes. 20 minutes is a major inconvenience to passenger and cost to NX

2. If you serve a rail "hub" in South Liverpool, is there not an argument to serve one in North Liverpool. Should all coaches serving Manchester be diverted via Salford Crescent or East Didsbury Metrolink stop?

3. Do people actually "integrate" between rail and coach? Surely, if you are using a (frequent) rail service to get from your home, you would normally continue from Lime Street by Rail, rather than infrequent and slower coach, as any fare saving will be minimised by using rail as one part of the journey anyway. I'm not an expert on NX ops from Liverpool, but surely the (current) 060 is the most frequent and most competitive with rail in terms of journey times. However, if accessing LSP haven't you already got a frequent train to Manchester anyway?

Finally, it seems ironic that you think NX should start diverting massively to serve the suburbs, at a time when both private bus operators and politicians (including would be Elected Mayors) are working towards bus services ONLY serving city centres.

In reply to your points:

1 & 2: As Wirralbus has said I am not saying that National Express should stop services to/from Liverpool One all I am saying is LSP should be added as a much safer and less intimidating stop for users that do not want to use Liverpool One given the city centre based location at night and weekends.

3: Ok I give you that some locations currently served by train at LSP would also be served by National Express but others aren't and I think you would find that customers would much rather wait for their coach in an enclosed station with a café, security and staff present for 19 hours of the day. I never travel to Manchester but I would rather have 20-30 minutes added onto my journey than ever use Liverpool One.

My main issue with Liverpool One is that as other people have said if I travel after 6pm I will be on my own with no staff/security to rely on if drunken idiots and thieves decided to target fellow National Express passengers waiting there. I will admit that being gay I am scared to use Liverpool One for that reason as my old coach services left Liverpool at 7am and arriving back at 11pm.

Norton Street closing for me is a massive loss and I hope that passenger numbers dwindle so much that National Express regret the decision to move to Liverpool One.