Blackburn’s new £5M bus station finally opened on Sunday, May 1st 2016, after several false starts and over a year behind schedule.
We now have our new modern bright bus terminus open and ready for Blackburn’s travelling public. First impressions outside look very nice and shiny, a bit like a giant greenhouse, when the sun is shining. There are even flower beds and concrete slabs which suffice as benches for a sit down while waiting for your bus. These are already proving popular with smokers and should give extra work to the street sweepers. At least the Ainsworth Street shops will be pleased, the first thing you see, when looking at the bus station windows are mirror images of their signs.
Inside the building, it is bright and clean, though feels a bit cramped and claustrophobic. This is down to the usual Blackburn town centre custom of trying to fit everything into as small a space as possible. Being in a river valley and having the Blakewater flowing underneath – some things never change. We were also used to having had a large open air facility on the old Boulevard, followed by something similar with the temporary site next door on Brown Street. But there is always going to be room for improvement with such a new facility, though maybe not too much room to play about with.
My first impression was the design theme of the bus station and the preponderance of these rounded ‘V’ shaped structures everywhere. Its ceiling reminded me of an upturned toast rack. There also seem to be other obstacles in your way as you make your way through the building. These are the information monitor stands and other new facilities added to help bus users. But having facilities to assist the bus travelling public is something we’re not used to in Blackburn. An information desk with helpful staff, large monitors giving departure times and bus service numbers and destinations are all very welcome indeed. One of my old pet hates was sitting in a bus shelter on the ‘Bouly’ and people coming up to me asking if I was waiting for a bus. And then asking me which one I was catching. No excuse now, it’s all there in easy to read real-time.
We have a strange situation with our buses these days. When I first saw the shape of our new bus station, I thought it was going to be too small for a place as big as Blackburn. Now, after various withdrawals of council and county council subsidies and subsequent cutbacks of services, our new bus station might end up being too big! On the bright side, Blackburn’s new bus station has opened during an unusual run of warm sunny weather. Remember winter and the cold weather won’t be long in coming. Then we will really start to appreciate our new transport facility and especially its handy sliding doors, keeping the cold, the rain and the wind out.