howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Most impressed with the new buses on the 101/102 routes, comfortable seating, wifi and usb charging points in them. Must have cost Stagecoach a few bob.
Captain Haddock
- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,136
I'd be much more impressed with new routes/timetables which could transport people from centres of population (Deal/Dover) to main hospitals (QEQM/William Harvey)?
howard mcsweeney1 and Jan Higgins like this
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I have been told that there was a direct bus service between Dover and Ashford at one time presumably it wasn't profitable enough. Nowadays it can take 2 hours or more to get from Dover via Folkestone to Ashford, even worse for Deal people. The best way to get to the QEQM from Dover or Deal is to get the train to Ramsgate then a bus(think it's called the Thanet Loop) direct to the hospital. Train fares are expensive though.
Brian Dixon
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
bus to Ramsgate,then jump on the thanet look.day explorer £6.70p.bargin price.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
Only every hour Brian and takes just over an hour to get to Ramsgate, I don't know how long the Thanet Loop takes to get to the hospital.
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
approx. 20-30 mins from Ramsgate bus station
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Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,136
For God's sake! The time most of us are most likely to be in hospital are when we are coming in to the world or leaving it.
If you honestly think expecting an octogenarian non-driver visiting her/his dying partner of a lifetime or the partner (if they have one) of a mother who has recently given birth and is looking after marginally older children should be happy changing transport and 'only' waiting 20-30 minutes you need your tiny little heads looking at.
It's a bus [U]service[/U] and gets hundreds of thousands of money from KCC to provide a service.
Which idiots are on the JTC who allow this to go on? Who are our KCC members? Hang on. I remember. Let's just forget it. Probably much too hard to organise.
(Personally, like them, I don't give a toss as I'm middle-aged middle-class and have a car. Keep queuing losers!)
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"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
As far as I am aware KCC do not pay a penny in subsidies to Stagecoach for buses running to hospitals.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,136
howard mcsweeney1 wrote:As far as I am aware KCC do not pay a penny in subsidies to Stagecoach for buses running to hospitals.
From the archives:-
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/subsidy_to_stagecoach
The only true subsidy paid by KCC to bus operators relates to that for bus
services which are not commercially viable but considered to be socially
necessary as without them Kent residents would be unable to access
essential services. This budget is commonly referred to as Socially
Necessary Bus Service Budget and in respect of this area, in the past 5
financial years, Stagecoach have been paid values as identified below.
2009 / 10: £966,660.88
2010 / 11: £892,581.75
2011 / 12: £1,058,525.92
2012 / 13: £1,435,903.09
2013 / 14:
£1,705,817.36Guest 1862 likes this
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
And none of them go near a hospital, certainly in East Kent anyway. I was surprised to discover that KCC had been subsidising some evening services on popular day time routes, not anymore though.
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,136
So we agree that there is provision KCC subsidising services from main centres of population to main hospitals.
This is obviously far too difficult for the great minds round here to contemplate, understand and/or organise! Meanwhile how much are we all paying from a different pot to transport these same people around?
It's a bit like the fact that the A20 is so special that we are unable to put in a variable speed limit?
A bit like due to lack of 'technologhy' we do not have electronic displays at bus-stops informing when the next bus is due whereas in deepest Somerset I can find a bus-stop with a solar-powered display telling me the next bus is on Thursday (market day)?
A bit like the sub-strata of Kent are so special that we can't have fracking?
That the Goodwin Sands are so 'special' that they can't be hydrographically modelled?
That we can't have 'shared space' in towns as unlike in the rest of the world, in this part of Kent, motorists try to drive over pedestrians?
When I moved down here and was told that the area was 'special' I did not realise that was as in terms of 'special needs' in referring to the standards of thinking by the great and the good in the area!
Paul M likes this
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
I take it that you will be leaving us soon Bob and moving somewhere more in tune with your pretensions.
Guest 1935- Registered: 2 Dec 2016
- Posts: 68
Captain Haddock wrote:
Which idiots are on the JTC who allow this to go on? Who are our KCC members? Hang on. I remember. Let's just forget it. Probably much too hard to organise.
JTC???
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
I guess Joint Transport Committee.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,942
just to say its Dover joint transportation
in regard to general bus services Stagecoach as aprivate company as capt haddock will be fully aware runs the services wherever they wish.
Of course they could run more services towards the hospitals but what routes would you cut to achieve it?
Although we can all moan about services in this case the bus I don't know where capt haddock(or whatever his/her real name is) but go towards cornwall devon and see no services week ends and no trains.
I'm not a fan of a deregulated bus service but we are where we are
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,136
Yup. You are probably right. Impossible to provide bus services to hospitals due to deregulated bus service.
Meanwhile in Cornwall which you cite:-
http://www.royalcornwallhospitalstrust.nhs.uk/DocumentsLibrary/RoyalCornwallHospitalsTrust/Websites/Internet/PatientsAndVisitors/GettingHere/BusRoutes.PDF
where surprisingly I've used BOTH trains and buses even on a Sunday! (You getting confused with the Isle of Lewis and the Wee Frees?)
Thinking about it all a bit further, perhaps the hospitals could subsidise the bus services by selling off the cars of patients who drive to the hospital but die while they are there? There must be a good few over the year one would think.
Button and Guest 1849 like this
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson
Button
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 22 Jul 2016
- Posts: 3,061
You'll be expecting bus drivers to deliver babies next!
(Not my real name.)
Captain Haddock- Location: Marlinspike Hall
- Registered: 8 Oct 2012
- Posts: 8,136
Button wrote:You'll be expecting bus drivers to deliver babies next!
Apparently so great are the queues for A&E caused by wicked Tory cuts in what we all know is the fifth largest economy in the world (yawn) that not only are people both dying and giving birth while waiting to be seen but a number are actually being conceived.
Button likes this
"We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out"
Dr. Hunter S Thompson