Passengers for Pill, Portway and Portishead ... by bus

[whole diary]

[grahame]

From Public Transport Experience

http://publictransportexperience.blogspot.com/2019/04/passengers-for-pill-portway-and.html

Bus operator First West of England will be making improvements to its North Somerset services from Sunday 28 April.   The changes include route and timetable alterations to improve reliability and punctuality and provide quicker, more direct routes for the majority of customers across North Somerset.

The changes have been introduced after a series of customer roadshows, as well as feedback from local councillors and bus drivers.

and
http://publictransportexperience.blogspot.com/2019/04/passengers-for-pill-portway-and_18.html

How to Confuse Potential Passengers

Readers may have gathered from yesterdays blog that the timetables for the Excel group of services from Bristol to North Somerset are changing on Sunday 28th April. Also in that blog, fbb prepared his readers by revealing that ALL buses to Portishead (now X3, X3A and X4) continue without exception to a loop via Redcliffe Bay.

Or so the old man thought. But a glance at the First Bus on-line timetable suggests otherwise.

I read the above (whole articles) and find myself understanding there is some confusion - but then I end up being somewhat confused in spite of all the maps and timetables shared.  Probably because I don't know Portishead.  Follow up comment to explain would be welcome!

[chuffed]

X3 travels to Portishead via Martcombe, Sheepway and the marina
X4 travels to Portishead via Pill Easton in Gordano, Sheepway and Bristol Road.
X3a travels to Portishead via Pill, E-I-G,  Sheepway and the marina, mornings and evenings.

All three buses meet at Combe Road and then do the Redcliffe Bay loop, via Avon Way, Down Road, Nore Road and West Hill before returning to Combe road. Quite who thought it was a good idea to only run in one clockwise direction around the loop. One needs to know the geopgraphy, as Combe Road is almost at sea level while the loop runs up steep Avon way to reach 350 feet ASL by the Highdown Schools/Old radio station site at Merlin Park, and then gently descends along the second half of Down Road and Nore Road to the bottom of West Hill at about 100 feet ASL

X5 is also running through Sheepway between Portishead and Cribbs causeway/WSM instead of the Portbury hundred bypass.

Just to add to the bizarreness, can there  be anywhere else in the country, where the main street of the Town, (called High St) is below sea level and the highest part of the town at 350 feet ASL is called Down Road.

Part of Down Road is called Lower Down Road where buses don't go. A visiting friend asked me one day if there was a Higher Up Road as well !