Sustainable travel is a core part of the master developer approach, promoting early options for walking, cycling and buses. At Houlton, when the development of 6,200 homes is complete residents will be no more than 400 meters away from a bus stop, making access to local towns easy. Currently families can take two regular bus services from the centre of the development outside Houlton School, at the west side of the development and to the east on Station Avenue.
To give our residents an opportunity to enjoy the bus for free and to test out how taking the bus can happen alongside other family or work commitments, we teamed up with the service operator – Stagecoach – to issue each resident with two single week passes for the bus service. In the first week, we received over 508 ticket requests from 81 families. The Stagecoach app provides real time information on services allowing residents to know when to head to the bus stop.
The current bus routes through Houlton run on average every 30-minutes and take passengers to neighbouring locations in Northampton, Daventry, and the main town of Rugby. Since
the link road, Houlton Way, which incorporates Rugby’s only dedicated bus lane, is now open as a direct connection to Rugby town centre, the bus journey from Houlton to Rugby Train Station only takes five minutes.
I just wanted to pass on a big thanks for the free bud passes scheme. It came at a perfect time for us as we’re currently without a car. So, we used our passes to get to and from work and into town. Will definitely be continuing to use the buses while we wait for our car to be fixed and are likely to use it once the car is back too, as it’s a great greener way to quickly get into town.”
ADAM
Resident and recent bus user