Your say / Transport
‘Improving public transport will be crucial both economically and environmentally’
The Government has recently published Bus Back Better – a national bus strategy for England (NBS).
It finally recognises what most bus users have known for decades: that Margaret Thatcher’s de-regulation of bus services in 1985 didn’t work. Not for bus users anyway, though many others have grown rich through it.
To follow up the NBS, local transport authorities (ours is WECA) are required to develop an ambitious bus service improvement plan (BSIP) in collaboration with local residents, bus operators, highway authorities, community transport bodies, local businesses and services.
is needed now More than ever
This plan will take account of cycling and walking schemes, and include targets for punctuality, journey times and passenger numbers.
Key to the BSIP is an enhanced partnership, building on our Bristol Bus Deal, a legal agreement with bus operators. The final plan must be submitted to Government by October 31 2021 as part of a bid for a share of £3 billion of transformation funding, which, if allocated by population, would mean £40 to £50 million for the West of England area.
Don Alexander says improving Bristol’s bus network is key – photo by Martin Booth.
Whilst any injection of funds into public transport by the Government is to be welcomed, enhanced partnerships will not remove what many of us see as the underlying issue, operators making profits off what should be a service for the public.
Many residents, particularly those living on the edge of the city, have to use public transport to access training, education, and healthcare; its reliability and cheapness is key to their health and economic outcomes. Politicians, like everyone else, have to work with what they’re given, but for me, the jury’s still very much out on whether it will be a step-change or a fig leaf.
Ultimately, we need to continue to improve our buses, as we were before the pandemic, with improved vehicles and services attracting more passengers. Our growing fleet of bio-gas buses, and additional interventions to speed up routes like the number two, are essential both to reduced congestion and reduced emissions.
Public transport connecting people to people and people to opportunity will be crucial both economically, and environmentally, with Bristol’s population set to continue to grow by tens of thousands over coming decades.
Cheaper, cleaner journeys on Bristol’s bus fleet drives forward something far more transformational: the underground mass transit system that our city so desperately needs.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=279696460447743
Don Alexander is Labour’s cabinet member for transport in Bristol
Main photo by Martin Booth
Read more: ‘I’m not a bus enthusiast, I just like buses’
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