Disbelief over Tracy Brabin bus plan for region – Yorkshire Post Letters

I READ with disbelief our new Mayor Tracy Brabin’s article on bus travel (The Yorkshire Post, May 18). I find our buses very comfortable and easy to use. Transport Focus surveys show that a huge percentage of bus users are happy with their buses.

However, there are a number of things which frustrate bus users, like poor or missing bus stop information. This is West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s responsibly, and now that Tracy Brabin is in charge, we hope the bus stop problems will be quickly sorted.

It is also inconvenient that buses, like all traffic, are often delayed by traffic congestion, road works and car crashes and we hope that now the Mayor is in charge that these issues will be efficiently dealt with so that we can show our approval or otherwise at next mayoral election.

Often it is difficult to access our bus stops because of speeding traffic or because cars are parked on the bus stop. The Mayor is now in charge of policing so I hope to see these issues a thing of the past soon.

Before I had a pensioner’s pass, for 30 years I had an annual Metrocard which I could use on all buses and trains in West Yorkshire. There is a cheaper version which is for buses only and even cheaper season tickets if you only need to use one bus company. You can have these tickets on a smart card or on your phone and a majority of bus users now use these methods. Regular bus users can travel for around £2 a day, which seems to me pretty good value. Tickets for one-off journeys can seem a bit pricey, but there are easy-to-buy day rovers.

Buses are much more expensive to operate when traffic congestion is high and bus passengers pay dearly for the political failure to implement bus priority and traffic management. These measures would quickly enable bus companies to provide much better services.

Many cities such as Nottingham, Reading, West Midlands, Oxford and Brighton have better services than West Yorkshire cities because their councils have pursued pro-bus policies for a number of years.

The mayor, however, is proposing to go instead for 
public control of buses which 
will be immensely expensive and will inevitably mean less money for education, health and policing, as well as higher council taxes.

I hope she will, instead, give the fullest support and priority to the enhanced quality partnership which will be a good value approach to an excellent bus network for everyone.

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