Rail stations in need of sensible upgrades
9:00am Saturday 24th January 2009 in Search Module
THERE have been many excellent letters in The Bolton News about transport in recent months, a lot of them concerning the Greater Manchester congestion charge debate.
The public transport lobby must be realistic in accepting that the great majority of people use their cars for valid reasons.
They can not reasonably get to work on public transport, they need the flexibility that car use provides, they may need to use their vehicle during working hours, and they no doubt wish to avoid the discomfort of walking to the nearest bus stop or station in bad weather.
People do not wish to spend too much time on a station platform. They seek trains with sufficient space that are clean and on time.
The reliability of the Blackburn to Manchester service has been an issue for many years.
We need better park-and-ride facilities. For example, Bromley Cross station is heavily used but has inadequate parking. This could be eased by opening Station Road, Turton, at least as a halt.
Another example is Lostock station. After years of campaigning, reasonable parking was secured there and all seemed well until the timetables were changed to the inconvenience of commuters.
Is it too much to ask that those responsible improve co-operation to deliver a service worthy of the long-suffering commuters?
I think people fail to recognise that a high proportion of the population in Britain has moved to suburbs.
We cannot be compared to conurbations in Europe where high numbers live in apartments in towns where transport systems have developed accordingly.
Suburban populations have to be recognised in transport calculations and highway provision — in return for the enormous contribution they make to the economy and through tax revenues.
When such a small proportion of commuters are both bus and rail users — less than 10 per cent — is it really necessary at enormous cost to create a state-of-art interchange in Bolton when we so recently improved the bus station on Newport Street? Why would we dispense with our Moor Lane bus station? Wouldn’t such a move undermine Ashburner Street Market? The council needs to give more support to the market, not undermine it.
One MP has referred to Trinity Street station as being from the “stone age” but it does not need a grandiose, multi-million pound improvement. It needs sensible upgrading for the comfort of users, including new lifts, and a proper car park.
Brian H Tetlow, Oaks Lane, Bradshaw
