Does York need a proper bus station - or not?

Segregated direct cycle routes (now an expectation for new transport infrastructure) are also very welcome.

It is understandable, however that several planning committee members, including Green councillor Rosie Baker, opposed the proposed new car park and lack of future-proofing for bus facilities.

This was largely driven by LNER’s continued requirement to match their current high car parking levels.

I would still urge LNER to work with partners to explore options for an ‘airport style’ dedicated Park&Ride package for early morning and late-night train travel, thus keeping up to 600-plus cars off routes to and from the station.

Work phasing means it will be some time before LNER start building the proposed multi-storey car park. Just as the council is committed to reviewing its car parking plans, LNER’s environmental policies and York’s commitment to zero carbon and a new Local Transport Plan should drive such a re-think, regardless of consents already approved.

Cllr Andy D’Agorne, Executive Member for Transport, Broadway West, York

Bus users won’t like rainy waits in tiny shelters

It was interesting to read of the new ‘simplified’ road system for the station - I didn’t think it was that complicated now.

What is apparent is that the bus passengers won’t find it simplified, walking an extra few dozen yards in the pouring rain etc to catch a bus and waiting in minuscule bus shelters.

Also no one has mentioned what is going to happen to the car park you access via Tea Room Square, as the whole area is now going to be pedestrianised.

I am a pedestrian as I don’t drive. Why would I want to hang around this new open area, unless with the new Sainsburys selling alcohol we’ll be able to sit around drinking all day?

Dave Matthewman, Green Lane, Acomb

Bus stations are so ‘last century’

I hate to disagree with my friend Alan Robinson (Letters, February 6) but York does NOT need a bus station. They are so ‘last century’. First Bus does not want one either (Marc Bichtemann’s letter, February 2). Their sole purpose is to facilitate interchange between bus routes and, when relevant, trains.

The bus station of the future is the smart phone in your pocket.

First Bus already has an app, ‘Tech the Bus’, which is a good start and which will develop further. Personalised for a specific multi-bus journey, it will tell you when to leave home to catch the first bus, where to alight for your second bus (counting down its arrival) and so on, to your destination.

The interchange point can be any bus stop in the city where both buses stop.

Meanwhile the planet and York need us to abandon cars for local journeys and use electric buses instead, recharging out-of-town.

For that to happen, we need buses to be free to use. That is the game changer – free bus travel. It must come sooner rather than later; the planet can’t wait. Nobody needs a bus station.

Quentin Macdonald, Church Lane, Nether Poppleton, York

Station revamp is a real missed opportunity

Marc Bichtemann of First Bus York is wrong and Alan Robinson of the York Bus Forum is right.

The new station forecourt artist impression clearly demonstrates a missed opportunity.

The sea of excessive unnecessary paving is a failure to make full and efficient use of available land.

York has long suffered having no proper central bus interchange.

Here is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to provide just such a facility right outside the railway station but it is being wasted for no logical reason.

Buses in York presently pick up and drop off in different locations simply because they have been forced to do so for decades; precisely because there was never a central hub around which services could be organised.

If the designers of the revamped forecourt are not able to comprehend that and do not have the long term vision of a much needed central bus location for future inter-city and local services then they are in the wrong job.

Matthew Laverack, Architect, Lord Mayors Walk, York