[Albion] Sensible, cheap and realistic solutions to the evening travel "issues".

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

The problem with that site and also suggestions for setting up something by The Keep is the exit is into the same bottleneck that we already have from the Bridge. The bridge can be slow enough at the best of times, adding more traffic trying to escape through the junction will only make things worse.

I remember talking to the guy who runs the Pyecombe P&R and he would happily make it available on a regular basis but he'd been told the issue was getting the extra buses (and drivers) needed to run it properly.

If the question was asked, would people prefer to have half a dozen buses running a shuttle to the Level / Old Steine and back or have those buses support an extra P&R site?

Fully take your point, but does a bottleneck need to remain a bottleneck forever? Is there some special reason that prevents that junction from ever being improved?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I really don’t get the bus/driver excuse. At the very least it’s a problem that money could solve. Brand new buses cost around £300k. Train some drivers. It certainly puts a pin in the “nothing we can do, guv” excuse from the club

Seeing as how the frequency of B&H buses diminishes in the evenings anyways, presumably due to some 'less demand' modelling, there must be a good few bus drivers sat at home who would welcome a bit of Albion-related overtime. Also quite a few buses just sat in the depot doing nothing. Maybe the club could chip in to boost the drivers overtime earnings to double time on matchdays?

 

[Was not Was]

Widen, improve and put in decent lighting all along the cycle paths from Lewes and Brighton. Including making it simpler to ride all the way to the bike storage without weaving through crowds, pushing up/down steps etc.

The potential for cycling to and from games is huge, but not the easiest at the moment, despite the cycle path along the A27. I know it won't work for everyone, but it takes all the pressure off in terms of getting to and from games, so should appeal to a lot of us and for a relatively modest investment I reckon the club could massively increase cycling and thus reduce use of trains and buses. Could combine with an electric bike/scooter hire system (once the path is wide enough to safely seperate walkers and riders) for the less mobile.

This is surely a long-term solution, but the flaw is the terrible infrastructure for cycling in Brighton & Hove. A safe journey from (say) Old Steine to the stadium is one thing, but massive numbers won't use it until the rest of the city feels save to cycle in, because at some point (unless you live on the route) you have to branch off and go home.

 

[Washboard Didgets]

By far the best travel experience I've had was the handful of games where the trains were not running / not running a full service and the club laid on a fleet of double decker buses running shuttle services into Brighton and Lewes.

Going to Brighton they used the A27 lay-by next to the station with 3/4 buses being loaded at a time. Buses then drove straight to Brighton with no stops and dropped off at Old Steine. On all occasions I was back in Brighton within 30 minutes of the final whistle. Including clapping the players off the pitch, walking down the stairs from WSU and crossing the bridge to reach bus stop.

No idea on the cost per match, but if it was possible then, surely it would be achievable for the relatively few home, weeknight evening matches we have ? (max 5/6/7 EPL matches per season? A few cup games? A few more if we get Europe again obviously – surely a few buses is a lot less than £1m a match?).

Regarding other comments:

• No way buying a fleet of buses and having them parked up waiting for 6 hours use 19 days a year would be viable or good use of funds. But they managed to charter buses and drivers before so it is possible.

• On a mid-week evening I really can't see a free pint 45 minutes after the final whistle would make any difference. Most people want to get home because they have work the next day, and require onward connections before the last trains/buses etc. Staying in the stadium until 10:45/11pm then travelling home is not very appealing, and anyone needing to get in their car to drive home from Brighton (or wherever they get off the train) is not going to partake.

 

[Vicar!]

I know we've sort of done this ad nauseum but given the recent (apparent) horror of an 8pm Saturday game, the half empty stadium during the closing stages of a vital game on Tuesday and the whinging that the new fanzone won't help evening travel surely the collective NSC minds can come up with actual solutions? I think everyone wants to see a full stadium with most people cheering on the team until the final whistle so there has to be a way.
So let's say you can spend £10m what would you do given:
There are usually parking spaces available up to the day of the game,
You can't increase the amount or length of trains,
Buses and bus drivers don't grow on trees,
It will always take a fair while to clear 30,000 people

Ideally no comments about a monorail, zip wire or waterslide. Come on, your are PB, you have £10m what would you realistically do?

Ensure the West Coast line was more reliable on late evening games. Put on more trains, restore the Hove connection, and do not, do not, cancel the last train.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

Trains?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

This is surely a long-term solution, but the flaw is the terrible infrastructure for cycling in Brighton & Hove. A safe journey from (say) Old Steine to the stadium is one thing, but massive numbers won't use it until the rest of the city feels save to cycle in, because at some point (unless you live on the route) you have to branch off and go home.

Strongly suspect that the safe cycling provisions in B&H are far better than just about anywhere else in the UK

 

[brighton_tom]

- A new p&r site would be a lot of added logistics and money for the club.
- Extra trains seems to be out of the clubs control.
- An extra car park somewhere just doesnt seem possible, im guessing it would have been done by now.

As others have mentioned the cheapest, and easiest way in terms of logistics to get people away from the Amex would be to have a new bus stop dedicated to shuttling people back and forth between say Moulsecoomb or Coldean & central Brighton, and then another one at Sussex Uni to go along to Lewis. This would massively take the load off the trains. Im sure people would gladly walk that initial 10-15 minutes to Moulsecoomb, Coldean, or over to Sussex Uni if they knew it was a short wait for a bus that then drove them quickly to the mentioned location. For weekend games the issue isn't so bad, so would only be needed on evening games & no need to build/rent a new car park. Its just the hire of buses, drivers, and stewards at bus stop locations.

 

[backson]

There's a lot about the bridge at Bridge Car Park being the bottleneck, but the rare time I've taken that option, the issue seems to be more the lights past that, and indeed for those going West, the lights at the bottom of Coldean Lane. Could the phasing of these be managed better?

Edit: I meant West, not East

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

I really don’t get the bus/driver excuse. At the very least it’s a problem that money could solve. Brand new buses cost around £300k. Train some drivers. It certainly puts a pin in the “nothing we can do, guv” excuse from the club

It's not as simple as training some drivers, there has been a shortage of bus/coach drivers for a few years now. Many buses have adverts trying to recruit new drivers. A quick internet search would show that just about every local bus and coach company are advertising for drivers. It seems that the wages are not great and many people don't want the long hours, shift patterns, weekend working etc. so seems to lead to high turnover of staff.

On a recent Seagull Travel coach, the driver was saying he had been asked to come out of retirement to help cover as the company didn't have enough drivers.

 

[bluenitsuj]

After each match, terminate all Eastbourne, Hastings and Seaford trains at Lewes for sayone and a half hours. Everyone travelling eastwards from Falmer then gets the Lewes train and there should be no excuses for not filling each carriage. There should be no need for a monorail if the train service is better organised.

how does stopping train for everyone travelling east of Lewes for 1.5 hrs after a game improve things. never heard such rubbish.

 

[jcdenton08]

After each match, terminate all Eastbourne, Hastings and Seaford trains at Lewes for sayone and a half hours. Everyone travelling eastwards from Falmer then gets the Lewes train and there should be no excuses for not filling each carriage. There should be no need for a monorail if the train service is better organised.

What!! I guess you aren’t trying to get to any of those places… I’d cancel my season ticket, it would make an already uncomfortable commute completely unacceptable

 

[schmunk]

This is surely a long-term solution, but the flaw is the terrible infrastructure for cycling in Brighton & Hove. A safe journey from (say) Old Steine to the stadium is one thing, but massive numbers won't use it until the rest of the city feels save to cycle in, because at some point (unless you live on the route) you have to branch off and go home.

The main problem for me cycling to the AMEX is that they decided to build it far too far away from my house, and put Ditchling Beacon in the way.

 

[Not Spanish Dave]

Monorail, obviously

 

[highflyer]

The main problem for me cycling to the AMEX is that they decided to build it far too far away from my house, and put Ditchling Beacon in the way.

Wimp

 

[Bob!]

What!! I guess you aren’t trying to get to any of those places… I’d cancel my season ticket, it would make an already uncomfortable commute completely unacceptable

I think what they are suggesting is that Trains from East of Lewes that would go to Brighton, and then back out from Brighton, instead terminate, then start at Lewes.
You then have shuttles doing Brighton/ Lewes/ Brighton.
So everyone changes at Brighton or Lewes to get their onward trains.

 

[Sorrel]

Reprogram the electronic signs so that every train that comes in just says LEWES.
Don't let anyone know what train they're on until it's nearly at LEWES.

A percentage of our fans would wait on the platform for ever, waiting for a train going to their destination.

 

[Sorrel]

We already have this. I live in Coldean and don't have a car, so it doesn't bother me. But I do have two parking permits sitting on my desk for my mates when they come down. I think they cost a fiver each.

They are less than that. Having a mate in Coldean has also been my occasional solution to the transport issues.

 

[Sorrel]

The answer to this, is Southern would probably just close the station on Matchdays sadly.

The League Cup matches earlier in the season didn't have travel included in the price. We had to buy tickets at Lewes (well, we bought them in advance) and the barriers were closed. But on the wayback everything was open.

 

[jackalbion]

The League Cup matches earlier in the season didn't have travel included in the price. We had to buy tickets at Lewes (well, we bought them in advance) and the barriers were closed. But on the wayback everything was open.

Those are one off games, if it was every game I’d imagine they would. They tend to include travel when it’s a capacity crowd (i.e. not Crawley or Wolves)