Stagecoach Manchester and Wigan

[Brickmill]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester and Wigan

(06/12/2018 17:25)urmstonian Wrote:  A poster on the drivers cab door. The new fares come in on 2nd jan. There's a special 38 Megarider but I can't remember the change.

I'm sure the prices I quote are correct, but the poster is low down and only readable for a few seconds whilst waiting to disembark. It says most single fares are frozen.

That 38 MegaRider could prove very interesting. The existing price is £12 which is only 25% below standard fare rates; Single fares on the 38 are on another planet compared to the rest of the network (Middleton Road & Wilmslow Road excepted). Can I ask which depot's bus you saw it on, btw? It is likely that I will be on a HE bus tomorrow and almost certain to be on HE buses (and/or Sharston) on Saturday, so will try and get the chance to look myself. In practice, it won't be tomorrow as the bus will almost certainly have standing passengers stood in front of the driver's cab door.

In general, things are getting more and more "intriguing" by the day for the people of the eastern Manchester. Or to put it another way, the transport version of the nuclear clock has now passed 2 minutes to 12, and some form of catastrophe must happen during 2019.

I'm trying to work out whether this fare rise was expected or not, and what the final factor was. The only thing I can think of is that Stagecoach are more confident than ever that Franchising won't happen and the process will be stopped before the public consultation. Based on both statistics I've seen (which I shouldn't have) recently and a national report from about 10 years ago - based not only on average loadings, but bus dependency (ie. low car ownership and no realistic access to our appalling Rail network), this would be very bad news for eastern GM (the poorest quadrant in the county) compared to the other three.
The news has also got considerably worse today - albeit this wasn't unexpected because it is a DECADE late - in that Reddish Bridge re-alignment will take place next year, and it is already suggested this will make the MSIRR work look like a Sunday afternoon picnic. Given the DAILY gridlock caused by appalling unpoliced driving on the M60; the systematic, insidious cuts in service levels, crazy re-routings (Haughton Green-M'cr) and now vehicle quality cuts, in the Manchester-Hyde/Denton-Stockport "saucepan" is already on the edge of catastrophe every other day. Imagine if the events of 17th October (alluded to by a Hyde Road driver on BBC NW a week or two back) happened alongside a mismanaged closure of Reddish Bridge.
Indeed, we don't know the details of the closure and as far as I can tell based on the original plans, the road must be COMPLETELY closed around the bridge for a period. Literally, how will traffic get around that. The nearest diversion road is Longford Road West and through Longsight.
There is only one answer, but it can't happen because of the reaction of the Manchester Mafia - and that is the complete obliteration of the crack houses and pub on Friendship Avenue and Woodland Avenue. This would be done by dynamite, same way as Cooling Towers and blocks of flats are destroyed. I believe the original plan from the late noughties included this as the ideal solution to reduce the blockade to hours instead of days or weeks. Unfortunately,the various "public" meetings that have been going on in the intervening years, solely involved Manchester residents, not Tameside or Stockport whose council tax payers would be affected FAR more.