March 31: Can we hope for rethink in transport wasteland?

ENVIOUS eyes are watching the formation of the transport section of the West Yorkshire and York Combined Authority. Integrated tickets and timetables between buses and trains is the stuff of dreams in the public transport wasteland that is Ryedale.

We’ve become used to buses timetabled to miss trains (or another company’s buses) 
by minutes, twice weekly services reduced to once a 
week, bus-less evenings and Sundays, to the incredulity of European visitors, who realise that they are going to be marooned in their holiday accommodation.

Yet, when a group of volunteers managed to resurrect a little bit of the summer Sunday Moorsbus system in 2014, they were so successful that this year a second, connecting, bus will run. The only cost to North Yorkshire County Council was £1,000 or so to cover bus pass use, but they are now threatening to withhold such reimbursement under a legal loophole. The wonderful DalesBus operation is also about to be hit by this facet of NYCC’s attitude towards voluntary public transport provision.

A fifth of people in this county have no car. Dare they hope that the new Combined Authority will make such a success of public transport that our council will be inspired to think again?