There is a new WESTlocal bus route starting in the Chew Valley on April 10th.
The X91 Chew Valley Sprint will operate Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays) as a once a day return service.
This new fixed route, aimed at commuters is picking up from Bishop Sutton, Chew Stoke and Chew Magna, as these were the areas where demand was shown to be highest in surveys carried out last Autumn. However, it is not just for people in those villages. They are planning a range of interventions to facilitate people travelling to the bus from nearby parishes.
Funding for the first year of this bus service is secured and at £2 for a single journey (£4 return) it will make travelling to work in Bristol far more affordable and potentially quicker than taking the car, especially when you consider the savings in Parking charges. Members can book a seat up to a week in advance, or anyone can hop on on the day without membership to take advantage of any unbooked seats or standing places.
MORE INFO: https://travelwest.info/westlink/
Other WESTlink Service Modifications
New zones
• The current three large zones – North, South and FTZ (largely North Bristol) and two shared zones are being replaced with eight smaller “core” zones and 13 shared zones.
• This will help tackle one of the biggest issues that customers have identified – that WESTlink minibuses aren’t always available when needed. One reason for this is that minibuses are too often being used to make long journeys often with just one person on board. This can take a bus out of action for up to an hour and leave other people waiting. One journey was logged at almost 20 miles long.
• The new zones won’t allow this and the vast majority of trips currently made by WESTlink will still be possible. The zones have been carefully designed to make sure that popular journeys are still covered – for example between Yate and Thornbury – and allow people to make short trips and connect with standardbus services for onward travel.
• The WESTlink area has been expanded to bring in new areas including:
o Royal United Hospital, Bath University and St Martins Hospital in Bath
o Hengrove Leisure Centre, Kingswood High Street, Ashton Vale, Hungerford Road area and a small area in Withywood, in Bristol
• A number of key destinations such as Cribbs Causeway, Southmead Hospital, Aztec West, UWE and Parkway Station will now be able to be reached by WESTlink for the first time from new locations including Yate and Thornbury.
The new zones have been developed by looking at where WESTlink trips have been made over the past year, overall regional travel patterns plus feedback from residents and community groups. Officers in the Unitary Authorities have been given an opportunity to view and comment on the zones – their suggestions have been taken onboard and the zones refined accordingly.
Given the pressing need to make improvements to WESTlink sooner rather than later as the funding period is limited, these changes will be introduced in the next round of bus service changes in April. This has not allowed time for further local input, but the zones are not set in stone. We are very happy to listen to further suggestions including by parishes and community groups and make future changes in the next round of bus service changes in September.
Customer friendly zone maps should be available online and on request in w/c 25 March.
Booking changes
Some current journeys on WESTlink have been mirroring existing bus routes. WESTlink was never intended to be a replacement or competition for main bus services, so changes will be made to the booking system so that people will be offered the best available option – if that’s a normal bus service, then a WESTlink will not be able to be booked.
I hope you can join us on Monday for the briefing session, but if that’s not possible, we will be able to share more detailed information afterwards.