More than a Park & Ride:
Lancaster Route L1
8 November 2025
ABOVE: Kirkby Lonsdale Coaches 204 (YJ66 APV), an Optare Metrocity, in Caton Road, Lancaster on Thursday 1 May 2025, working Lancaster Park & Ride route L1. This particular vehicle is in plain white rather than company livery
I'm a great believer in Park and Ride as a means of getting people that "last mile" into town, when they either won't, or can't, use public transport for the whole journey. I don't drive as much as I used to, but when I do, I will look for a Park & Ride option for the place I am visiting.
Facilities at the "park" end are variable. Some give you a proper sheltered waiting room, with seats and toilets:
ABOVE: A decent waiting room is provided at Long Ashton Park & Ride, in Bristol. A covered waiting room with toilets and a leaflet rack (which even includes local bus maps). Taken on Wednesday 9 March 2022.
Others just give you a shelter:
ABOVE: A basic shelter is all that is on offer at Taunton's Gateway Park & Ride on Saturday 30 March 2024
Routings follow different patterns as well. Some services run from the Park & Ride site to a specific point in the town or city. Others link two sites on opposite sides of the town / city - efficient as the buses don't have to park up in the centre. Another model is the "frying pan" route, which runs 'up the handle' into town, then does a circuit of the town and returns the way it came, 'down the handle'.
ABOVE: Stagecoach South East 26357 (YX22 OHP), an ADL Enviro200 MMC, in Tourtel Road, Canterbury on Saturday 19 April 2025, is operating the Canterbury Park & Ride - a simple "out to in" service from Sturry Road to Canterbury Bus Station.
Most of these services are dedicated to carrying people to and from the car park(s) - sometimes Limited Stop or even Non-Stop. But there isn't always enough passenger traffic to make this worthwhile. So why not open up the service to intermediate passengers to make it more worthwhile?
That's what I found when I discovered that my Premier Inn in Lancaster wasn't quite as close to the City Centre as I thought it was! It was, however, close to the Park & Ride site from which local route L1 runs into the City, so I thought that would be a good way of getting started each day.
The L1 is run by Kirkby Lonsdale Coaches (trading as Lonsdale Buses) on behalf of Lancashire County Council. But what makes this one a little different is that it serves all normal stops along the way, and is open to anyone, whether they have a car or not and regardless of where on the route they are starting.
The service has been carefully thought-out. Lancaster is an historical city with many small, congested streets, so keeping some of the traffic away with a Park & RIde can only be a good thing.
The site of the Park & Ride car park itself (known as Caton Road) is right next to Junction 34 of the M6 motorway, which gives fast access and egress for motorists. It's quite a complicated road layout getting onto and off the motorway here (see map), with those heading north needing to follow a link road across the River Lune before they can join the motorway itself.
There are 650 parking spaces at the site and it is open 24 hours a day.
ABOVE: The Park & RIde site on Friday 2 May 2025
The facilities here are at the basic end of the spectrum - just a small bus shelter:
Taken on Friday 2 May 2025
Curiously, the details for the L1 bus are provided twice in the shelter - the standard Lancashire departure times format is supported by a special poster - the latter has been taped over the official display - by whom, I wonder? Curiously, the detail on the specific route poster is less specific on departure times than the Council poster, although it does give details of the very attractive fares.
ABOVE: County Council information (left) and more specific information (right) about the L1 service, at the Park & Ride site on Friday 2 May 2025.
One of the keys to a successful Park & Ride is that one doesn't have to wait too long for a bus. The L1 is on the borderline of this in my view with a basic 15-minute service that extends to 20 minutes from the evening peak onwards.
Buses are scheduled to stand for about five minutes between trips, so time it badly and you could be standing in the cold or rain for 10 minutes or so. But I'm lucky. This mild, dry day sees a bus appear almost as soon as I arrive at the stop. There would have been plenty of parking space, had I wanted it.
ABOVE: Kirkby Lonsdale Coaches Optare Solo HIL 5348 at the Caton Road Park & Ride on Friday 2 May 2025
Just as access to the motorway is reasonably simple here, so is access to Caton Road itself which was take us to the City Centre. The first stop is right outside my Premier Inn (handy - and there's a Holiday Inn opposite)! We pass a major industrial estate, and then under the Lancashire Canal.
This is the industrial north of course, so it doesn't take long to discover an old mill along the road. This is the location of "Standfast and Barracks", a fabric printing company that has been on the site since 1924.
Taken on Sunday 4 May 2025
There's a plaque outside the main entrance, placed by the "Lancaster Civic Society".
Taken on Sunday 4 May 2025
Further along this road is the old Lancashire Corporation Bus Depot, which I covered in my article about Route 555 through the Lakes.
It's only about 1.6 miles into the City Centre so we're soon close to the Bus Station. But we don't go in. Locals presumably know that they need to leave at the Sainsbury's stop nearby - but I don't!
Instead, we continue south, past Dalton Square with its statue of Queen Victoria, and on via Thurnham Street where the Lancaster Courthouse stands. The building, to me, is striking rather than architecturally-pleasing.
It feels as though we're going to leave the City Centre at the other end when we cross the canal again to access South Road. The White Cross Business Park stands in the restored building originally known as Storey’s Mill, and built between 1854 and 1880.
ABOVE: The White Cross Business Park, on Friday 2 May 2025
One might be inclined to think that we're leaving the city altogether as we head even further down South Road. But this is only to find a way to turn around, which we do at The Pointer Roundabout. We're heading back the way we came and stop right opposite the White Cross Business Park, outside the Royal Lancaster Infirmary. If there were to be a City Centre terminus on the service, this would be it. No passengers travel along South Road just to come back - except your intrepid author, of course, who wasn't expecting this long detour around the City Centre!
The Infirmary was opened in 1896 and the building is Grade-II listed.
ABOVE: The Grade-II listed Royal Infirmary building is partially hidden by trees in this view from Friday 2 May 2025. Meanwhile, Kirkby Lonsdale Coaches HIL 5349, an Optare Solo SR, calls during a journey on route L1.
We now return into the heart of the City Centre. King Street runs broadly parallel to Thurnham Street and Dalton Square, giving a view up towards Lancaster Priory, nestling high above the City.
Lancaster Priory, formally the Priory Church of St Mary, is the Church of England parish church of the city of Lancaster. It is located near Lancaster Castle and since 1953 has been designated a Grade-I listed building. A Roman oil lamp, dated around 180 AD, was discovered outside the Priory church in 1910, suggesting that Christian worship took place on this site before Christianity was officially allowed in the Roman Empire.
ABOVE: King Street, Lancaster, with the Priory centre-stage on Friday 2 May 2025.
The small City Centre sports a number of interesting buildings. The Judges' Lodgings building dates back nearly 400 years. The current house was built around 1625 by Thomas Covell, Keeper of the Castle and famous for locking up the Pendle Witches during the Lancashire Witch Trials.
From 1826 the house became a lodgings for the travelling 'Red Judges' of the Assizes Courts. Today the building houses a museum.
ABOVE: The Judges' Lodgings Museum, on Friday 2 May 2025
Finally (it's only been about 15 minutes but has felt longer!), we come to the Bus Station. This important Focal Point for all the City's buses is slap-bang in the centre of the City. Stand 4 is dedicated to route L1 and there is generally a little queue for it whenever I arrive.
ABOVE: Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire 11204 (SK19 EVV), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, pulls out of an uncharacteristically quiet Lancaster Bus Station - but it is early on a Sunday morning (Sunday 4 May 2025, to be specific)!
From the Bus Station, buses take the quick route out of the city, back to the Caton Road Park & Ride. It only takes a few minutes in this direction - one just has to remember to get off at Sainsbury's in the other direction to avoid the detour via the Hospital!
ABOVE: Kirkby Lonsdale Coaches 209 (BV23 NNL), a Volvo B8RLE MCV Evora, at the top end of Caton Road heading into Lancaster City Centre on route L1 on Thursday 1 May 2025.
The whole journey takes about 25 minutes (30 in the afternoon peak), meaning that two buses can cover the full service. The weekday service runs for an impressive 15-hour day, with departures from Caton Road from 0605 until 2105.
However, there is no Sunday Service at all, and there are virtually no other services down the Caton Road on a Sunday (in case you're wondering, I walked into town that day). But, despite the weekday service being reasonably busy, I don't think there would be a market for a Sunday Service.
And that's the L1. More than a Park & Ride service, and I suspect that at least half of its clientele are not using the service because they can "park and ride", but are just following the traditional option of waking and riding! And many Park & RIde services don't make provision for that, which is why the L1 stands out!
I'll leave you with a couple of different Park & Ride models. One of the unusual ones is the London Bus Company's route 339 from Shenfield to Epping, which carries people "the last mile" (three miles, actually, from Epping) to the Epping Ongar Railway at North Weald. Using traditional London buses, most people probably use it as a "Rail & Ride":
ABOVE: London Bus Company RT 1790 (KYY 628), an AEC Regent III, at North Weald on Wednesday 30 July 2025, taken from the upper deck of another bus.
Not all Park & Rides use buses. Rail and tram-based schemes exist around the country as well. There are various Park & RIde sites at tram stops on the Nottingham Express Transit system, for example:
ABOVE: Nottingham Express Transit 237 (Stuart Broad MBE), passing the Old Market Square in Nottingham City Centre on Wednesday 29 March 2023.
So next time you drive to a town, ask yourslef - is there a Park & Ride facility I could use instead? It might be cheaper. It will certainly be more interesting!