AndyPol wrote:I think that the outrage is mainly about a bus service that is paid for by Central Government (and then KCC/DDC are on their own), needs new roads built just for the buses, most Dover residents (not Whitfield) would need to walk a distance to get to any FastTrack bus stop, or ironically, use a car to get to a bus stop. Given what happened last weekend would have made it a "slowtrack" as the buses would have been queued on Castle Hill!
For example, if I need to get my weekly shopping done at Tesco using FastTrack, I'd have to walk up the Roman Road to a bus stop (pointless as I'd almost be at Tesco then!) or walk / drive to St James, park there and get a FastTrack from there? Absolutely no reason for me to use it! It's been designed for DfLs to live in their expensive, as yet unbuilt, new builds and commute on the High Speed. Will school children be able to use it on their expensive school season tickets? I doubt it, and it doesn't go near most schools in Dover! The whole thing is a white elephant, although that is unfair to white elephants as they are more useful.
Isn't it supposed to primarily serve people moving into the Whitfield expansion? It's strange to give an example based on someone outside the main user group, unless you're looking for a bad outcome
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I expect the new roads are to keep journey times as short as possible in future when the service caters for 12/13k residents. Could something similar be done on existing roads? Yes, probably...but given how congested the town already sometimes gets (especially from River/Whitfield direction) maybe a new route for public transport isn't such a bad thing.
AndyPol wrote:There is also a concern that once built, very few will use it and tax payers will have to pick up the tab as KCC/DDC would never admit to it being a failure
Existing Whitfield can justify a bus route and the new builds will be 2 or 3 times that size - why do you think very few people will use it? Not sure what you mean about picking up the tab - I'm not aware that central government was ever supposed to be paying ongoing running costs?