The switchover of bus stops in Croydon passed off less than smoothly, with dozens of passengers clearly confused by Transport for London’s poorly advertised and executed alterations in the town centre.
Web of intrigue: TfL’s ‘spider map’ of Croydon town centre is no longer available on their website
“When I was walking through there on Saturday, was no sign of any uniformed (or otherwise) people directing folk to the right stops,” according to one loyal reader.
“There were a lot of bewildered people about.
“And of course there aren’t any shelters at the new stops…”
The official TfL “spider map” that was issued to illustrate the changes is not currently available on the transport authority’s website, suggesting that not all has gone according to plan.
The changes implemented on Saturday have removed bus stops from Katharine Street, outside the Town Hall, but they have done nothing to resolve the disconnect in several bus routes. Since route changes were made four years ago, these now often require passengers from the south of the borough to make at least one change of buses to travel north of the town centre, for instance if they are visiting Mayday Hospital.
As if to emphasise this disconnect in bus travel through the borough, TfL devised two separate “spider maps”, showing the web of bus routes and their destinations, one for Croydon town centre (with the confusing bus stop changes) and a different one for the Whitgift Centre and West Croydon.
“The bus stop changes taking place are in Croydon town centre to the south of the tram lines following the completion of the revised road layout by the borough,” a TfL spokesperson told Inside Croydon, apparently oblivious to the confusion the transport agency has created.
All change: the new bus stop arrangements in Croydon town centre which were introduced on Saturday
“The new spider map has been used to give a map reference for the new bus stop locations.” This is the map that has since been withdrawn.
“The West Croydon spider map covers the stops and area which includes the Whitgift Centre and there are no changes occurring here,” they added.
You can see bus routes at West Croydon and the Whitgift Centre on the pdf of this “spider map” here.
Separate sphere: the detail from TfL’s ‘spider map’ of West Croydon – missing from its other, town centre map
TfL’s presss officer did get back to Inside Croydon later, “to clarify” the situation with their vanishing map.
“To clarify – the map is still correct and outlines the changes – but that version wasn’t meant to be on the website, so that was the only reason for its removal.” Which is helpful, or not…
The TfL press officer also said, “When I asked the team last week about this, they had said that the spider map was the print version and hadn’t meant to be published online.”
They then provided a link to the map, which wasn’t meant to be online and so was removed, but which is available on the official TfL.gov,uk website, by clicking here. Clear?
It is not only bus passengers who have been confused by the poorly executed changes. Even bus drivers have been struggling with some of TfL’s faulty mapping.
The 455 to West Croydon was shown as stopping at three different stops in the area.
And as anyone familiar with the generally narrow roads around Fisher’s Folly and the access on to the Flyover, with cars parked on either side of Fell Road, there was often little room for manoeuvre when buses encountered one another travelling in the opposite direction.
Our loyal reader observed: “I spotted that the new Croydon to Bromley SL5 Superlink bus starts on February 3. The stops for Croydon shown on their poster seem to be somewhat wayward as well.”
UPDATED: This report was updated at 5pm to include a further “clarifying” comment from TfL
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