Bus services for local people

In Bristol there are lots of bus routes but in too many areas there are several buses and a few service providers and bus companies all sharing the same route.  
There are a number of reasons for this, the biggest reason is because lots of buses share the same lanes to complete the last two miles of their long routes.  

However a complete review of the services should see more buses passing more roads and local people in the most forgotten corners of the city and in to neighbourhing areas.  

Take St George as one example, Two Mile Hill Road and all the way to Old Market Street.  How many buses use this same route when they could help to reach more people in side roads as well?  
Take Fishponds Road as another example, verious services all passing through the area while places like Hillfields to the side suffer from relience on a terrible route, a sluggish no 6 journey both to Kingswood in one direction and the city centre in another and their local bus doesn't even take them to their own district shipping centre.  Catching the bus from Hillfields to Fishponds is unimaginable for nearly everyone who lives there and yet Hillfields is in Fishponds.

Neighbourhood Partnership teams across the city should be asked to redesign bus routes for local people.  14 areas across the city all working to design the next stage in public transport provision.  

Why the contribution is important

It's important because we are now the Green Capital of Europe 2015 and so many people cannot imagine life without their car.  I've tried living without a car for the past eight months are it is extremely difficult, even living close to a mayor bus interchange.  For people in areas of our city where bus routes are sluggish and buses are unreliable it's not an option for 10'000's people to consider catching a bus for everyday leisure and work.  
I have to rely on friends to get to places in their cars, the current bus services take up to fives times longer than taking a car.  

If buses routes were more flexible and services providers using them were given fair access to potnetial cistomers, then we could start to see real change in the city instead of isolation and reliance on a family car.

by user946047 on December 03, 2013 at 02:12PM

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