What on earth have they done to the 95?

The 95, along with its letter-suffixed brethren, is the main bus route serving the village of Walkley in west Sheffield. The purpose of this post is not to provide a historical account of the 95, but an interesting one is provided by the blog “Public Transport Experience”, which is split into part 1 and part 2. The blogger - who goes by the alias Fat Bus Bloke, FBB - also includes some pictures of the route through the ages, including when it used to be operated by trams. I will, however, summarise the history enough to make this post - which intends to critique the latest change to the service - understandable.

The 95 was a long-standing route from Walkley to the south-eastern suburb of Intake, which was cut back to Sheffield centre, and then extended to the Meadowhall shopping complex by two slightly different routes (95 and 95a) through Firth Park and Wincobank.

But this arrangement persisted for only a few years before being reshuffled again. In September 2024, the timetable was completely rewritten. Routes 76/76a took on a route that replaced the Meadowhall half of the 95/95a, and then the 95 grew from two route variants to four - 95, 95a, 95b and 95s. The 95 runs to Rotherham, but particularly notable for our purposes is that the 95a and 95b run, by slightly different routes, to Crystal Peaks shopping centre. (“FBB”’s blog post linked above, includes some of First South Yorkshire’s advertising material for the Crystal Peak extension, including such delights as not one but two references to the “Univesity (sic) of Sheffield”).

So what is happening from April? Travel South Yorkshire has produced the following verbiage in an attempt to explain it:

This summary quite clearly explains the changes for passengers on the Walkley half. All the buses will now be numbered 95, rather than some saying 95a or 95b.

And the way it’s written seems to imply that the change is only on the Walkley half. Services 95a and 95b will be replaced between Sheffield and Walkley, but, one assumes, they will be left unchanged between Sheffield and Crystal Peaks (albeit presumably no longer running through to Walkley).

But as you may already have gathered, that’s not what’s happening.

What is actually happening is that the Crystal Peaks half of the 95a and 95b is being completely removed with no replacement. So why don’t they just say that? TSY’s description verbosely explains the near-irrelevant number change of the Walkley half, but for some reason completely ignores the total loss of the half-hourly service to Crystal Peaks.

To their credit, First South Yorkshire, the bus operating company, is much clearer about what is actually going on:

This doesn’t mention the number change on the Walkley half, but that is, in my opinion, far less likely to cause confusion.

But still conspicuously absent is any advice, from either TSY or First, about what passengers who previously used the 95a and 95b should do. Broadly speaking, the service withdrawal itself is not too problematic. Clearly it is always disappointing to see public transport provision reduced, but almost the whole length of the routes is covered by alternative services to Sheffield or Crystal Peaks (albeit not always both) - either from the same stops or from relatively nearby. So the chance of this actually cutting people off from the network completely is very slim.

So here is a short summary of the most suitable alternative routes for passengers from various place on the soon-to-be-withdrawn 95a and 95b:

• From Handsworth Road, use route 30 or 30a for either Sheffield or Crystal Peaks. 52 and 52a also connect to Sheffield (and in fact onwards to Walkley), albeit by a slower route.
• Routes 52 and 52a provide connections from most of Woodhouse and Woodhouse Mill to Sheffield (and Walkley). For Crystal Peaks, change to route 30 or 30a on either Tannery Street or Handsworth Road. Additionally for Sheffield, train services are available from Woodhouse station.
• From Swallownest, use route X5 for Sheffield and 26/26a for Crystal Peaks.
• From most parts of Aston and Aughton, use route 71 for Sheffield. (Note that some roads in Aston and Aughton will be unserved, but generally a fairly short distance from a stop on route 71)
• From Beighton, use 7, 30 or 30a (for Sheffield or Crystal Peaks), or 26/26a (for Crystal Peaks only). From sections of Beighton served only by 26/26a, change at Crystal Peaks for frequent services to Sheffield by tram and various bus routes.

As a non-expert with a laptop and some fairly basic local knowledge, that list took me approximately 20 minutes to compile. The fact that seemingly nobody at either First or TSY had those 20 minutes - to give passengers that they are letting down by withdrawing a service the basic courtesy of information about what other services are available - is quite frankly an embarassment, and in my opinion is just one of many examples of the systemic underresourcing of public transport failing passengers and, by extension, failing society. After all, why would anyone want to regularly use their local bus service if it could just vanish at a few weeks’ notice with no indication of what they should do about it?

To conclude this blog, here is another, rather different, observation. Let’s have a look at the Walkley half of the timetable for a typical hour:

You will notice that half of the buses run via Flat Street serving stop number FS2, and half via Arundel Gate serving AG2. Flat Street and Arundel Gate are two parallel and adjacent streets in Sheffield centre. That’s not the end of the world, but it’s a bit inconvenient, especially considering the buses that run via Flat Street serve Sheffield Station, while those that run via Arundel Gate stop a fair bit further away. It would certainly be better if all 95s could serve the same stops in Sheffield centre.

But look at the map and it becomes fairly obvious why they have arranged things this way. Unfortunately the map is missing from the Travel South Yorkshire website, so you’ll have to make do with my drawings on top of a screenshot of Open Street Map:

Notice that the road layout does not permit a bus to serve FS2 and then turn onto Commerical Street, so buses towards Rotherham have to go via Arundel Gate. But meanwhile, the bus stops on Arundel Gate are extremely busy and it’s likely there is simply nowhere for a terminating bus to wait to start its next journey, so buses heading back towards Walkley need to end up at FS2.

Or do they? Just south of Flat Street is Sheffield Interchange, a gigantic and rather underused bus station. There’s loads of space for buses to wait and turn around.

So why not simply have all 95s run into the Interchange? Then, those heading out towards Rotherham could turn out of the Interchange onto Harmer Lane and go out the same way they come in, and those heading back towards Walkley could turn onto Flat Street as normal - all while reducing the number of buses on congested Arundel Gate, allowing all inbound 95s to serve the station, and making the timetable simpler to understand for prospective passengers.

Do they perhaps consider this would take too long? Or have First simply missed a trick here? It wouldn’t surprise me - but then I also wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve missed an important reason that this wouldn’t work. Whatever the case, this concludes my musings about this round of timetable changes.