Loughton Residents Association

LRA

Local Transport

More on transport in Loughton.

Consultation on taxi ranks and fares
 Hackney carriages are the taxis which can be hailed in the street, or park and wait for a fare, as opposed to private hire vehicles (which must be pre-booked).
The District Council is considering the introduction of taxi ranks within the District. It is also considering prescribing the maximum rates that a hackney carriage driver can charge for a journey, so every taxi would have to have a meter installed in the vehicle. It has held a consultation exercise with residents.
In practice, if taxi ranks are provided, we expect them to be used by the same firms that currently provide taxis in Loughton. We will keep readers up to date with progress.

Bus route 20 Bus
LRA Cllr Chris Pond has been following up the problem of “short turning” of route 20 buses at Loughton station. Arriva have lost the contract to run this route, and from February, Transport for London (TfL) will contract Go-Ahead/Blue Triangle to run it instead, to its existing specification, but using new vehicles. The short-running issue is to be addressed officially by the County Council with TfL. Please do keep Chris informed of any further specific problems.

Bus Service changes
There have been three recent instances of new/revised bus services being commercially provided in Loughton with little or no publicity and much confusion (some of these services/revised services do not appear in timetable booklets, cannot be researched on Traveline, and have little or no roadside publicity). LRA Cllr Chris Pond is following this up through the Town Council. The details are as follows:

  • 255, Loughton - Cheshunt via Waltham Abbey;

  • X5 timetable: following an enquiry from a resident, LRA Cllr Chris Pond has established that the bus operator has moved its depot from Hoddesdon/Waltham Abbey to Langston Rd, and consequently has changed the timetable - but has not updated the timetables on the bus stops! New timetable

  • The 19A Bus Service (direct via A121/B1393) to Harlow stopped operating in late December. The only bus service now to Harlow is the 541 which takes a very long route, and yet again there is no longer a direct service to Epping.

  • Bus Service 20 and 167: a resident asked us why these buses don’t run at regular (joint) intervals – the answer is that one runs to a 15 minute headway and the other to 20, so it is impossible to thread them through Loughton at even intervals, even if there are no traffic delays. www.countdown.tfl.gov.uk will give you the real time arrival of buses at your stop (m.countdown.tfl.gov.uk from blackberries etc).

Central Line sardines
We have had the impression that over the last few years the trains for Loughton commuters have been getting more and more crowded, and that it’s harder to get on a train in the peak morning hours. The LRA Plans Group has strongly resisted attempts to boost park-and-ride at stations beyond Loughton – there are already too many commuters, from further out in Essex, parking in residential roads in Epping, Theydon Bois, Debden and Loughton. We are grateful to Ian Strugnell for pointing us to some figures to back up our impressions – in broad terms, between 2003 and 2010, morning peak time journeys increased as follows: Epping 60%; Theydon Bois 15%; Debden 55% and Loughton 30%. And there were much bigger increases in the period before the peak.
More. and see ‘Customer metrics’. Note that, except for Epping, the figures include journeys in both directions.

Commuters already flock from all over Essex to use the Underground stations at this end of the Central Line. The LRA Plans Group (and others) recently objected to a planning application to build a 179 space commuter car park on Green Belt land off Abridge Road, Theydon Bois, because of the effect it would have on Loughton’s train commuters. The District Council turned down the application, but the applicant has appealed, and there will be a public hearing on November 15th and 16th.

Seats in the bus shelters outside Loughton Underground Station
LRA has been following a couple of lines of approach to get these seats reinstated after they were vandalised three years ago. LRA Cllr Ken Angold-Stephens’ efforts have borne fruit, and the replacements are now installed.

Underground works affecting trees
London Underground (LU) intends to carry out embankment stabilisation works during 2012 on the railway line between Buckhurst Hill and Loughton and also between Debden and Theydon Bois. District Council officers have sought an assurance from LU that:

  • measures will be put in place to safe-guard trees wherever possible; and

  • they will consult town and parish councils during the planning process and prior to the start of any works.