GetaCab 2

The webcast, for some reason, didn't happen. The council's press office has remained silent. So all we passengers know so far of what the Cabinet decided for us is what the media chose to publish. From that...

On First's 'service' routes, it sounds like all those journeys marked with a £ sign in the paper or online timetable, will be reduced to hourly - except those on Sunday evenings, which will disappear completely unless First sudenly decide they were economic after all.

The 500 Harbour Link bus is no more. Intriguing that it should be axed to save a few bob, when the same council is promising to find £17 million MORE for the Ashton Vale rapid transit, to provide vital public transport in the same area, guaranteed to lever in squillions of inward investment etc etc. that wouldn't otherwise materialise.

Intriguingly, though, the Park and Ride contract has been won by a 'not for profit' company, HCT (Hackney? Community Transport).

And - totally outside the council's influence - Freebus was successfully launched yesterday, providing a half-hourly Saturday daytime service on a loop around the city centre. So there is something very positive to report.

Otherwise, even without the detail, this thirties Labour Party poster pretty well sums up what's happening across the board.

GetaCab

Expect to see cabbies dancing in the ranks tomorrow evening. The Cabinet will be handing them a wealth of new business, as key bus services for this major city are dismantled to appease George Osborne.

The Cabinet's being asked to decide between two intolerable options - both of them cutting deep into those services deemed (until now) to be "socially necessary". In the process, it will hit everyone from schoolchildren to the elderly and disabled, make nonsense of any pretensions to fight climate climate change, to cut air pollution, or to reduce congestion.

Right now, we don't know which option the Cabinet (are there any non-motorists among them?) will impose on us (I'll add to this post when it happens). The papers in front of them at the meeting won't help them choose, they don't spell out out what will be cut, only, scattered about the documents, what might be retained. Sir Humphrey would be proud of it.

It's clear, though, that after September, it will be much harder (if it's possible at all) for any Cabinet Member to catch a bus home after a meeting. At best, evening services on the main city routes will be heavily reduced in the evenings, so that (say) to get back here to Stockwood will involve waiting for the next HOURLY bus. At worst, the last bus will leave around 9.30!

Early morning services face the same threat, while Sunday buses are likely to be halved.

This may all be good news for First; unless passenger numbers are cut pro rata to the number of buses, they'll be able to squeeze more passengers on fewer buses, and pick up a city subsidy at the same time. It's an ill wind....

Meanwhile, over in Nottingham......


......I had the chance last week to try their city-run public transport - the bus and the tram. Cheaper than Bristol, city-wide, high frequency, excellent buses, stops, and information. Routes are branded by colour, and terminate in the centre.


There's a flat fare (£1.60, or £3.40 all-day) plus a whole range of cheaper seasons and group tickets, operating as smart cards, often valid with other operators too. The buses are much quicker, because no change is given and most people use smart cards anyway. And so far as I can see, it's all unthreatened by cuts.

That's what happens where a city has the wisdom to keep its transport operation 'in house'. Tomorrow, Bristol City Council will agree to abandon its last council-owned vehicles, the specialist vehicles dedicated to community transport. Ideological insanity.