The world’s most remarkably poor bus user in the history of Coventry strikes again!

I have a particular skill at being the poorest user of the Coventry City bus network. I am sure this isn’t helped by the fact the network is run by the stagecoach, that company being the worst bus company I have ever experienced. Many years ago they took over Barton Buses in Torbay and then proceeded to, in an impressively short space of time and in the height of irony ‘drive’ the bus provision into the ground.

Last year when I came back from Coventry city centre I stepped onto a 16 bus. This bus I saw took me to Binley where my car was. What I didn’t know at the time was it took a rather long and winding route. It took 40 minutes to travel to my destination as it proceeded to take me through all the tiny suburbs on my way, reminiscent of travelling from my house to Mansfield on the 3A where the bus would be diving diving down the side streets. The quicker alternative would be the 3 which goes on the main roads and takes a more direct route. In Coventry these buses are the 13’s.

As I had come from the station I walked into the centre of town. I knew roughly where the bus stops are. They tend to all be around the market square. I passed a few before I saw the stop for the 13 and 16 buses. For those interested in gourmet Doner Kebabs, this would be the bus stop for you as there is a German themed premium, sit down, Doner kebab restaurant. What will the world think of next. In my day Kebabs where essentially ordered at 2am from the least hygienic takeaways in Torquay, from the most dubious people and contained even more dubious slices of ‘meat’. We think it was meat, but after so much beer it never seemed to be a problem whatever was added as long as they buried it in chilli sauce.

The stop, on the other side of the cultural coin is about 3 shopfronts up from a pub called the Philip Larkin. Larkin of course being one of the 20th century’s greatest English poets. If you haven’t read any, I would recommend him to you all. I was so confident

At 8:40 the 16 bus arrived. Ha, thought I, not falling for that trick again! I let it go past as I waited for the 13s. One arrived about 6 minutes later and on I step. ‘Binley business park’, I confidently say to the driver. He nods and I tap my card on the card reader. The one thing I will say about the Coventry services is that they are amazingly cheaper than the Trent Barton’s around here. £1.10 single to go just over 3 miles, which in Kirkby would be the equivalent of going to Sutton would be about a fiver!

I go and sit down confident in my new found knowledge as the pulls away. Now I freely acknowledge my geographical knowledge of Coventry and it’s many and various suburb is not brilliant. I tend to be aware of the names but not where they sit within the sky blue jigsaw. After about 20 minutes I was getting concerned that a] I should have recognised some part of the Binley road, and b] It should have only taken 15 minutes to get to Binley anyway! So, where was I?

Thank the stars for google maps and pinpoint your location. I stared in disbelief at the map, I was somehow heading in the opposite direction and had managed to find my blue dot in Holbrooks. I had never been to this place, but I had heard some work colleagues mention they live in Holbrooks, and I know that they travel across Coventry to get to work: I was going in the wrong direction, but what to do. I was certain I was on the right bus!

The bus reached a place called Nunts Lane. We then proceeded to perform a U-turn and began to head back past everything I had passed on the way to Nunts Lane. jubilee crescent where we picked up the same man who got off on the way up and now got on the way back. I tried to hide my face!

We passed the ugliest Catholic Church I have ever seen, and 60 brutalist has no place in church architecture.

I had no clue as to what was happening? This was definitely the right bus. The answer became apparent as we began to drive into the city centre. We arrived at the stop after the one I had got on, by the transport museum. Loads of people got on and then the bus began to head in the direction I vaguely knew was the right way and within 5 minutes I was on Binley road, 40 minutes after getting on the bus. 

You see the 13 bus when entered at a certain stop, ie: the one I got on at then proceeds to throw in a 40 minute out and back trip to northern Coventry. It then proceeds at this point, once returned to the city, to fly out directly to Binley. Had I walked 3 minutes further down the road then I would have caught the direct bus, without the 40 minute bus tour of suburban Coventry and it would have placated the panic that I was being driven to Lichfield, or worse Stoke.

what, you may say was the benefit of this ridiculous mis-understanding of Coventry public transport, I hear you ask. well, for one, I will now know for next time that I walk to the transport museum! And the other is I must now have explored every inch of Coventry at some point via their bus network.