Louise's magical bus tour

[Sixsixtysix]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86qy500545o

Great to see more fantasyland from our genious transport secretary. I live in a rural area where we get one bus an hour, and a lot of those get cancelled when the bus company can't find a driver.

£1Billion isn't going to give the UK "London-style" bus services across England. Maybe Labour will "stop the boats" and "start the buses" instead?

[Getragdogleg]

Councils can introduce London style franchising.

So sub the job out and take the money, leaving the running of the service to someone else.

sounds exactly like why the roads are full of potholes and rubbish is collected every three weeks and the country is on its arse generally.

[Dingu]

You would spit your dentures out if you had to pay 1% of the tax needed for a London style bus service in your middle of nowhere village.

[Getragdogleg]

Dingu said:

You would spit your dentures out if you had to pay 1% of the tax needed for a London style bus service in your middle of nowhere village.

In which case the bus is not the tool for the job, so they need to stop pushing it as the solution.

No amount of window dressing , tendering, schemes or plans will change the simple fact that in rural areas privately owned transport is the best solution.

[119]

More fantasy dreamt up by the current clowns.

[ChemicalChaos]

Interesting to see it mentions Liverpool.
Liverpool already has an extensive network of buses run by both Arriva and Stagecoach.
For £2 I can hop on the bus running every 15 minutes from my house near the airport and be in the city centre in 45 minutes (dependent on traffic and any onboard scally fights).
If I really wanted to I could spend £4.50 and ride the network all day from Runcorn to Wigan.
What exactly are they planning to "improve" here?

Meanwhile, my parents recently turned old enough to get their free bus passes. In their little countryside village outside Crewe there used to be a once a week bus into town but even that was axed.
Anyone unable to drive is effectively trapped in the village.
But what sort of astronomical cost would there be to link all the rural areas in a meaningful way?

This seems like yet more labour waffle, frankly

[andy43]

What’s a ‘London style’ bus service? Will I need a stab vest?

[Hill92]

andy43 said:

What’s a ‘London style’ bus service? Will I need a stab vest?

Since buses were deregulated outside London in 1986, bus companies choose their routes and set their own fares.

Whereas in London, Transport for London (and its predecessors) always retained the power to set routes, timetables, fares and service levels. Individual routes are then tendered to private sector bus operators who will receive a fixed fee (with bonuses for quality improvements and penalties for poor performance etc) for running the service. No duplication of running routes or abandoning less profitable areas and day tickets aren't limited to a particular operator as happens elsewhere.

Could make a difference in cities. Less so in towns and rural areas (where a version of bus concessions already exists anyway through the contracts for subsidised bus routes).

[bloomen]

Round my way, which qualifies as the arse end of nowhere, the buses are about as good as one could hope for. There's one route which runs on a stupid timing but the other ones could almost be made to work in day to day life.

Lots of other places are cut off but no bus company could ever make them work.

When I was young there weren't any buses at all other than the school bus.

Many a place will be more interested to hear whether their route survives at all before any other claims.

[Huntsman]

"Isle of Wight to see unprecedented levels of funding"

Since I live just about as far from anywhere as is possible on the Island, I'll be interested to see.

As it stands the bus route I'm on is hopeless, but here's the thing, there's nobody on it.

Replacing bloody great buses with some decent 7 seat mpv's would make far more sense.

[Gareth79]

bloomen said:

Round my way, which qualifies as the arse end of nowhere, the buses are about as good as one could hope for. There's one route which runs on a stupid timing but the other ones could almost be made to work in day to day life.

Lots of other places are cut off but no bus company could ever make them work.

When I was young there weren't any buses at all other than the school bus.

That's the opposite of what most villages have seen. I grew up in a village and I'd occasionally use the bus to ride into Southampton, there was a bus every 2 hours and it would have just about been possible to use it to commute to a 9-5 office job at either end of the route. I don't know when it survived until, but now the only scheduled bus now is a dedicated one for the Eastleigh colleges (but I think anybody can use it), and then a community minibus 3 days a week which gets you to a few local towns for a couple of hours shopping etc.

I think there's two main reasons why it dwindled - the demographics of the village have changed and the residents are generally much wealthier, and for the rest, cars are cheaper to run.

Edited by Gareth79 on Sunday 17th November 22:44

[Killer2005]

I might be wrong but I thought a lot of local buses were already franchised out. And it's still st. Around these parts, more services are being cancelled than put on.

[Biker 1]

It would make zero difference to me even if there were busses every 5 minutes, as closest bus stop to me is at least 35 minute walk. There's no chance of doing my weekly supermarket shop & lugging it back from the bus stop!

[RammyMP]

Killer2005 said:

I might be wrong but I thought a lot of local buses were already franchised out. And it's still st. Around these parts, more services are being cancelled than put on.

When the Manchester buses were operated by a franchise we had a local bus every 10 minutes or so. Andy Burnham and Manchester council took control of them and the service is now appalling.

[Yertis]

xstian said:

Oh look, another grr Labour thread.

Let me guess it’s not enough money to make any difference, while simultaneously it too much money and something, something union barons and gold plated pensions.

You guess well. What are the upsides?

[Southerner]

Killer2005 said:

I might be wrong but I thought a lot of local buses were already franchised out. And it's still st. Around these parts, more services are being cancelled than put on.

Many councils have had to squeeze their funding, with some of them testing the water regarding pulling the whole lot of it - Hampshire ‘proposed’ this and then swiftly changed their mind after a very poor reception. But there’s very little cash left to fund lightly loaded community bus services; if they’re not viable commercially then at some point they’ll likely vanish.

[xstian]

Yertis said:

You guess well. What are the upsides?

To better bus services?

[Rusty Old-Banger]

ChemicalChaos said:

For £2 I can hop on the bus running every 15 minutes from my house near the airport and be in the city centre in 45 minutes (dependent on traffic and any onboard scally fights).

They only have to pay you £2? Blimey, I'd want a hundred times that to end up in Liverpool

[James6112]

Sixsixtysix said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86qy500545o

Great to see more fantasyland from our genious transport secretary. I live in a rural area where we get one bus an hour, and a lot of those get cancelled when the bus company can't find a driver.

£1Billion isn't going to give the UK "London-style" bus services across England. Maybe Labour will "stop the boats" and "start the buses" instead?

There will be a lot less immigration under Labour, than under the corrupt Tories.
Tories only policy was to let the ‘problem’ build up, cause division, red meat to numpties. That’s why they were booted into touch.

Buses, a good idea. Better & more reliable Bus service can only be a good thing.
Absolutely hopeless here, so nobody uses them.

[JuanCarlosFandango]

I don't want one. I live in a rural village down narrow roads and they insist on sending these stupid great double deckers which are usually nearly empty. The only people who do seem to use them are drug addicts. I want fewer and smaller buses.