R is for Runcorn

Saturday 17th September 2022

It’s got the original and best busway you’ll find anywhere in Britain. Indeed it’s said Runcorn has “the world’s first bus rapid transit system”. Yet you hardly ever hear it getting a mention these days. Conceived as part of the Runcorn New Town Masterplan in 1955, the 14 mile exclusive road network opened for bus services in October 1971.

No fancy guide wheels or barriers. Just boring normal roads, except it’s a totally separate network exclusively for buses and designed so most residents live within around 500 yards of a bus stop.

To plan my Runcorn ride-abouts, as per my usual practice I searched online for a bus map and soon found this one produced by Halton Council which helpfully shows all the busway roads in orange with other bus routes in green.

It didn’t take long to realise the bus numbers are way out of date but at least I got a sense of the busway’s geography – an irregular circle with two spindly legs and an isolated stretch of road to the north.

More helpful was Arriva’s bus map, characteristically hidden in the depths of the company’s website under ‘Tickets’. But at least there is one, and being the main operator in the town with a locally based bus garage, it proved a huge help to work out what goes where; so well done Arriva.

The focal point of the busway’s large circuit is Runcorn’s Shopping City where buses arrive and depart on dedicated raised roads with a bus station at either end of the retail complex – a north and south bus station.

Runcorn is exactly the kind of mid-size town I’ve been visiting during this series having a population of around 63,000 and a unitary council – now one of five local authorities in the mayoral controlled Liverpool City Region. It lies on the south side of the River Mersey bounded in the southwest by the Weaver Navigation, to the south by the Chester to Manchester and Crewe to Liverpool railway lines and to the east by the West Coast Main Line.

Liverpool is 16 miles north west; Warrington nine miles north east; Chester 18 miles south west and Crewe 25 miles south east of Runcorn. Widnes lies adjacent to Runcorn also within Halton Council’s area rather like Hove is to Brighton and Poole to Bournemouth, except the River Mersey acts as a barrier albeit links between the two were much improved by the tolled Mersey Gateway Bridge opening in 2017.

Runcorn has two railway stations. The main station in the extreme north west corner of the town is close to Runcorn “old town” with the original High Street, now very much overshadowed by the “new town” and Shopping City. The other station, Runcorn East, as its name implies is on the town’s eastern boundary.

The former sees Avanti West Coast’s hourly Liverpool to London trains as well as London NorthWestern’s hourly Liverpool to Birmingham and Transport for Wales’ two-hourly Liverpool to Chester service.

The station buildings are very basic although the public realm immediately outside (now known as “Runcorn Station Quarter”) is currently undergoing something of a beautification.

Runcorn East is even more basic with a small station building almost hidden away as you wander down from the busway to the station entrance which has no direct road access itself.

Transport for Wales trains from here run hourly to Manchester Airport in one direction and to Llandudno Junction in the other with trains continuing to Holyhead or Llandudno on different hours.

Northern’s Leeds to Warrington Bank Quay trains also occasionally stop here, particularly in the early morning and evenings.

The area surrounding the station is very well kept….

…. and not surprisingly is a multi ‘Best Kept Station’ award winner.

I arrived at the main Runcorn station for my visit thanks to Avanti West Coast and as a visitor set about seeing where to catch a bus to the nearby High Street bus station.

It wasn’t easy, not helped by roadworks taking place as part of the public realm transformation.

I ended up walking – it’s not far – only about seven minutes. The two bus routes running a half hourly (one) and hourly (the other) frequency isn’t a sensible option in such circumstances, unless a bus is about to arrive. In the event, the bus stops alongside the station aren’t exactly prominent. In fact you’d be forgiven for not seeing them at all if you missed the lay-by road markings.

Runcorn’s High Street bus station is a rather depressing affair.

At least it has departures listings on display.

But otherwise you’d be hard pressed to find something positive to say. Don’t expect to sit down.

Don’t expect to buy a Halton Hopper ticket before boarding.

Don’t expect to rely on long withdrawn bus route numbers on display.

Don’t expect to find your way easily around ‘Old Town’ by using the map on display complete with unhelpful stickers.

And although there is real time information displayed at some stops, it hardly shouts quality.

If you know where to wait for a bus to take you to the more vibrant Shopping City in “New Town” you’ll find a fairly decent combined frequency of the routes involved; but if you have no knowledge, then it’s probably best to give up. There’s nothing on display to help you.

I caught a bus on Arriva’s route 110. It runs half hourly from Warrington to ‘old’ Runcorn and then via the stretch of separate busway that heads due east (see the out of date Halton map above) before dropping south to the main busway circle on which it does an almost complete anti-clockwise circuit to terminate at the Murdishaw turning circle.

It had a good load on as did all the trunk routes I saw which connect Runcorn, including the busway, to neighbouring towns. These are also operated by Arriva and include routes 79C and 82A operating to Liverpool from the Murdishaw turning circle via the western side of the busway to High Street bus station and on to Liverpool with the former every 20 minutes via Widnes, Ditton and Upton and the latter every 30 minutes via Liverpool South Parkway and the airport.

Arriva also run an hourly route 61 the long way round from Halton Hospital to Liverpool via Rainhill taking two hours.

Stagecoach also put in an appearance in Runcorn with its hourly route 2 from Runcorn’s Shopping City via Ellesmere Port to Chester….

…. and Warrington’s Own Buses runs routes 62/62A from Warrington via Murdishaw, Runcorn Shopping City, High Street and over to Widnes and Halebank on a seven journey a day timetable.

Also on the scene is Ashcroft Travel operating tendered route 52 linking ‘old’ Runcorn with residential areas just off the busway in Halton and Shopping City to a roughly hourly frequency.

The busway itself sees both a clockwise (route 1) and anti-clockwise (route 2 – not to be confused with Stagecoach’s route 2) bus service operated by Arriva every 12 minutes.

I took a three journey hop around the clockwise circuit – it only takes 20 minutes for a complete journey around – and was struck by the small numbers travelling; but on two occasions I found myself waiting around 20 minutes for a bus indicating there must have been at least one, and maybe two buses, missing from the allocation that day – not a good way to encourage passengers. There’s no real time information available at bus stops on the busway.

Road junctions along the busway enable other vehicles to gain access to residential areas lying within the circuit.

I investigated one of these and found the traffic lights remain on red on both approach roads changing to green when activated by approaching vehicles on either road.

Residential areas close to the busway are very much low density, which may explain the low use of the busway buses. Despite the presence of the busway and a frequent service (reliability issues aside) there did seem to be quite a few cars parked up by houses and bungalows.

Compliance with the busway’s bus only regulations seemed very good.

I only saw one example of a car driving through the ‘No Vehicles except local buses’ signs and it got a resounding blast of the horn from the following bus I was on until it made off at one of the junctions. Otherwise busway roads were eerily quiet, and congestion free of course.

Except there were two sets of roadworks on the busway when I travelled last week one of which was across one of the junctions necessitating the dreaded four-way temporary traffic lights causing some disruption to time keeping with what seemed like an inordinate waiting time.

The already mentioned Murdishaw area on the eastern side of the busway has a good size turning circle where a few routes turn round with decent sheltered waiting facilities for passengers alongside a Co-op store.

I also took a ride on Arriva’s half hourly route 3/3A which links Runcorn Shopping City and its adjacent Halton Hospital via residential areas in Halton, ‘old’ High Street and railway station to Weston Point which lies to the west of the town on the east bank of the River Weaver. Like the inter-urban buses I saw, this also carried some impressive loads.

Within Runcorn itself, Arriva also operates hourly route 200 linking Runcorn station through the busway to the Industrial area to its east and Daresbury Park. Hardly anyone was spotted on the buses I saw as I travelled around the area.

Arriva also has hourly route X30 with three buses operating between Chester and Warrington via Frodsham which call by Runcorn Shopping City and Halton Hospital using a small section of busway.

The two bus stations on the north and south side of Shopping City on the busway have different facilities.

North bus station is the better with an enclosed waiting area serving three departure points, but seemed to be the quieter of the two.

South bus station is much smaller with an outside area to wait for buses ….

Departure listings are available at each departure point…..

…. together with seats, some of which have seen better days.

As have a lot of things to do with the busway.

Infrastructure on the busway is in desperate need of care and maintenance. Bus shelters along it from a distance look bright with their yellow and black colouring but the blight of graffiti is ever present and timetable cases have engrained dirt making some of the displays unreadable.

It doesn’t convey a smart impression that will attract passengers. Quite the reverse. Signage and “public realm” generally is in need of replacement.

Poster cases (this one at Runcorn East) look uncared for….

… and some of the signs along the busway are in a run down state.

Which is a shame, as the busway’s presence is as vital and necessary now as it was when introduced, way ahead of its time, 51 years ago.

If only other mid size towns had a busway too.

Roger French

Previous AtoZ blogs: Andover; Bracknell; Carlisle; Durham, Evesham, Folkestone, Grantham, Harrogate, Inverness, Jarrow, King’s Lynn, Leamington Spa, Maidenhead, Neath, Oswestry, Potters Bar, Queensferry.

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