Queues at Brighton station

[beorhthelm]

Not being funny, but when we come next tuesday its going to be worse. We wont be allowed on the same train, and we will get priority.

really? and when did this last happen to away fans? i dont have much experince of mid-week away game, usually the away fans have to wait. if they follow the method used when we play at Selhurst, you'll be held and then escorted to Preston Park.

 

[Drumstick]

No queues and about 20 mins I reckon. http://www.buses.co.uk



That's the 49A. The 49 goes to East Moulsecoomb, it's 10-15 mins walk from there.

They both turn up at the Avenue though. Useful if there's no other option but there are many many buses that go closer.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Start running more shuttle buses from Brighton centre to the ground - say every 10-15 minutes from 2 hours before kick off. It'd ease congestion on the trains.

This. We have 'park and ride' for outsiders. Why not have a few 'ride' sites for folk who live in Brighton? Ie somewhere you can walk to and pick up a direct regular shuttle buses which simply run when full. One round the back of Brighton station. One in Hove. Simple.

 

[gazzaa2]

Shuttle buses are the solution. You'll only need two or three going straight up and down Lewes road for a couple of hours before and after the game. Potentially thousands could go that way and it'd ease the crowding on the trains.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

This. We have 'park and ride' for outsiders. Why not have a few 'ride' sites for folk who live in Brighton? Ie somewhere you can walk to and pick up a direct regular shuttle buses which simply run when full. One round the back of Brighton station. One in Hove. Simple.

Yup, that's get my vote. In fact clear out Bennett's Fields completely, apart from for designated club employees and accredited disabled supporters and fill that car park with 'ride' buses. Let existing Bennetts Field car users use the Park n Ride like everybody else. Simples.

 

[gazzaa2]

Reading run a lot of buses from Reading town centre to the Madesjki and that ground's miles out of town, in the middle of nowhere, with no train station nearby. They've got a similar capacity to the Amex as well.

 

[Notters]

Shuttle buses are the solution. You'll only need two or three going straight up and down Lewes road for a couple of hours before and after the game. Potentially thousands could go that way and it'd ease the crowding on the trains.

But there are already buses up and down Lewes road every 3-5 minutes.

 

[Tony Meolas Loan Spell]

Another vote here for shuttle buses. Should be reasonably quick as they are not stopping at every stop till they reach Falmer.

 

[Storer 68]

well, half way, now I think about it probably is an exaggeration but we were under the bridge and people were still joining the queue behind us.........

 

[Brovion]

Shuttle buses are the solution. You'll only need two or three going straight up and down Lewes road for a couple of hours before and after the game. Potentially thousands could go that way and it'd ease the crowding on the trains.

Agreed. I mentioned it on here before (running from St Peters to Falmer and back) during one of the interminable transport debates we had before the stadium opened, and someone posted a reason as to why it wasn't possible. Can't remember what it was and it wasn't THAT convincing.

 

[gazzaa2]

But there are already buses up and down Lewes road every 3-5 minutes.

But they need a few matchday specials running. It'd stop the long queues at the station if loads could just get on at a specific point and go straight to the ground.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Coming via London I got to brighton about 6.50pm.

I got into the queue when it had reached the top of trafalgar.

It's VERY EASY for people to be experts in hindsight and say "you should have got a bus" but I assumed it would be treated like the london to brighton commute. i.e CRAM onto the trains like sardines.

With this logic in mind I assumed I would be on a train within 20 mins.

However the marshalls were letting through drips and drabs at a time. The process of filling up the the train I was on took about 20 mins.

The saddest part of all though was a guy spotted there was room on the train, tried to get on and was told 'f*** Off' by some lovely fans.

Anyway. got there with 5 mins to kick off. ran to the stadium, run up the WSU stairs, skipped the pie and JUST caught the first kick.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

But they need a few matchday specials running. It'd stop the long queues at the station if loads could just get on at a specific point and go straight to the ground.

Seems to me the buses should be sharing the load with the railways. Working together they could get everybody that wants to use public transport back to civilisation very much quicker. Private motorists could make their own arrangements - but not by hogging prime Amex resources.

 

[Uter]

Step one is to make sure existing transport provision is being fully utilised. It doesn't make financial sense for the club to lay on extra transport if this isn't the case.

If there are huge queues at Brighton station, but buses running half empty a short walk away and trains leaving not completely full then cleary this is not being achieved.

There are also around 1500 car parking spaces in Bennett's Field and at SU. That's a potential 7500 people that could travel by car, but I think the club only estimated 2.6 per car in their planning application. Even just getting this up to 3 per car would mean 600 fewer people having to find other means. Would some sort of car-sharing database help? Or some carrot and stick measures? E.g. an extra charge for cars arriving with fewer than 3 occupants.

 

[Tooting Gull]

If I am ever in Brighton again in that situation (midweek or Saturday) I'll give the bus a try, because I was standing there in the queue thinking, as Tom Hark suggested, 'This is a sh*t option that I've chosen'.

I still think just giving up on the trains, when there is a station so close to the ground, because no one can be arsed to make any effort to improve the situation at Brighton is huge cop-out from all concerned.

But you have to recognise getting away from Falmer is pretty good, more effort and thought has gone into it than possibly at Brighton pre-match.

 

[Arthur]

Here's the deal as I see it.

I want to get the train from central Brighton to Falmer
I want to staying drinking in a pub in central Brighton for as long as possible.
I don't want to have to queue for too long
I don't want to "leave earlier" as someone previously suggested.

It really shouldn't be difficult! I don't care who is to blame or is in charge whether it be the club, train company or the old bill (who seemed intent in holding up the queue last night) it just needs to be sorted.

If it doesn't get sorted then the following will happen:

People will stop bothering going! Like it not there are allot of fair weather in our new support. If their match day is experience isn't what they expect they simply won't bother.
We might not get approval for the additional seats (Although I expect we will regardless as money will talk).

I said after the first couple of games about the people moaning about everything that it was early doors and if the club didn't resolve the issues by Christmas then by all means have a proper moan up then and I stand by that. The transport didn't work last night but I assume the queuing system was an experiment. Hopefully they'll learn from their mistakes as I'm f***ed if I'm queuing for an hour again to go a couple of stops up the line. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

 

[Scoffers]

They could speed things up by running the P&R bus and coaches and stopping at the the Sussex University underpass instead of going up the ramp and over the carriageway and in to the ground. Then once they've off-loaded at Sussex Uni, go up the ramp and go back to Mill Road.

Mill Road is another major problem though, just getting the bus or coach through the traffic to pick people up.

 

[BHAFC_Pandapops]

Scousers that were waiting at Brighton Station couldn't believe it. They started joining the queue half way down for fear of missing the match. They said they hadn't come all the way from Liverpool to miss the kick off.

i don't suspect many came from liverpool anyway. The lot i walked past weren't real scousers.

 

[CheeseRolls]

I took a look at the bus option, after all I used to head down to St Peter's to catch the number 5 to Withdean. Whilst the 25 is very frequent the journey time to the Amex is around 30 minutes, I have no idea of the impact of heavy traffic in the area and would be just as concerned about missing the kick off going this way.

 

[Bozza]

Here's the deal as I see it.

I want to get the train from central Brighton to Falmer
I want to staying drinking in a pub in central Brighton for as long as possible.
I don't want to have to queue for too long
I don't want to "leave earlier" as someone previously suggested.

Indeed.

Grabbing a cab has to be the answer, doesn't it? You'll either be in a group or easily find some other fans in the train queue who'd happily pay a few quid to get to the ground before kick-off with minimal hassle. £3 (each) seems a small price to pay to me.