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Plans for temporary bus stands drawn up
Date published: 21 February 2012
Plans to use temporary bus stands along The Esplanade, if Rochdale’s new Transport Interchange isn’t ready when the existing station is demolished, have been drawn up by the Council.
Work on the £11.5m Transport Interchange is set to start in April. The interchange, a combined bus, taxi and Metrolink station, is due to open in May 2013.
The current bus station will be knocked down in summer 2013.
In the crossover period the town could be without a bus station so interim plans for temporary bus stands have been developed.
John Hudson, Chief Executive of Rochdale Development Agency, said: “With all of the planned construction activity this year an important consideration has been minimising the disruption to traders and shoppers in the rest of the town centre.
“The current plans are for the creation of temporary bus stands around The Esplanade to allow demolition works to progress whilst the new Interchange is being built but we recognise that this could be disruptive to some of the events being organised in this part of town to celebrate the International Year of Cooperatives.
“We are, therefore, looking at whether we can adjust the programme slightly to avoid the need for the temporary stands altogether.”
Comments
Is it me, but why not just keep the old one open until the new station is finished? Shut the old one down one night and open the new one the next day!
Why all the jumping through hoops and building temp stops on the Esplanade?
Or, stop me if I'm getting controversial or thinking outside of the box, why didn't the new bus stops get built near the Town Hall in the first place, instead of a station built on a slope!?
Looks like we have gone full circle. I wonder if the number 17 bus stop will be outside the HSBC/Midland Bank.
In the days of my childhood those who introduced motorised omnibuses to Rochdale established a system of bus stops within the Town Centre. At the time of erecting the present existing bus station they changed all the route numbers. We now find that with the exception of altering the route numbers, our esteemed Chief Executive of Rochdale Development Agency is intending placing our buses around the Town Centre once again.
Have Your Say
Alternatively we could ditch the interchange and simply put the bus stands on the Esplanade. That would save a lot of money and bring much needed footfall into the town centre.
By johnb @ 21/02/2012 13:46:19