I know there's barely any bus services that don't use that route now. Routes will be tweaked. As I've said, there's existing services that have used that route previously in and out of town. It's good to go, barely any work needed - just send the buses down there...
You find it offensive that "a football crowd" is gonna have to queue to get in a station or be 'coralled' as you put it? The same sort of thing happens every year at stations for the Grand National. Is it okay for them but not football fans for some reason? It won't just be football fans getting 'coralled' anyway mate, it's called a queue, and non match going people will have to get in it too. Don't like it? Don't get in the queue, it's not the sort of crowd control you're trying to make out there.
Sandhills is just as viable as Kirkdale for many people in terms of distance, It's exactly the same as to Kirkdale from Goodison, and it's 0.6 miles closer than Bank Hall to Goodison, which many other people find viable.
The point is, there is no mention of "tweaked" bus services in the transport strategy or any changes to it since. This could be for a number of reasons, perhaps because they (a) haven't thought of it (although it was suggested repeatedly during the consultation processes); (b) there isn't enough buses/drivers in the system to maintain existing route services and divert the required number or because; (c) when they've tried modelling diverting the buses into the immediate area with expected matchday traffic, it doesn't work. Or some combination thereof.
Yes, Sandhills is as close to BMD as Kirkdale is to access GP... but again, the point is, why do so few people use Merseyrail at present? Could it be because of that relative lack of convenience of that 1km walk? Could it be there are so few soccerbuses serving from Sandhills? Could it be that there are lots of bus services far closer to GP that are much more convenient and therefore only those people who live close to a Merseyrail station choose that mode of transport?
It's one thing parking your car say a kilometre away from the Goodison and walking to and from the ground. You know that when you're walking back to it after the match, you won't be expected to stand in the rain for an hr or more before you can get in it. Of course halving the parking catchment area by being on the waterfront, means that those parking distances will also increase, not withstanding more stringent residential parking restrictions.
Sandhills is reasonably close, although 500m would've been ideal, for both greater convenience and to still stagger the arrival of fans post match. However, the main point is that it currently can only accommodate 3k passengers per hr, because it is an island platform of limited space and outside access is also limited. They estimate that the new marshalling area and matchday staff can increase that to upto 6k per hr, which is far short of the total train capacity serving that station. So even if more people could be enticed to leave their cars at home, or park and ride to use the train, the capacity is limited by that accessibility.
I believe that there are solutions. Yes, some diverted buses to extend eastern and southern suburb bus routes. Also, originally there was going to be a new 2 platform train station at Vauxhall. This fell off the agenda as soon as the commonwealth games bid failed, and that obvious funding vehicle was lost. The Lime Line proposals for a trackless tram serving the whole waterfront and the city centre has also gone quiet in recent times (possibly superceded by the Glider proposals) . Hopefully both of these can be revived asap, to really drag BMD (and the whole Liverpool Waters and Ten Street schemes) into the city centre proper. That would be a game-changer for our new stadium. Only then, will they be able to achieve the 60:40 public to private transport ratio they say they need, to avoid gridlock and achieve a good dispersal time. Ideally, they should be trying to change people's matchday travel habits before they get established, ie when it opens.
www.merseytravel.gov.uk
