Calls for bus service for Holbeck Urban Village

[SF07]

Local councillors are calling for a bus service to run along Water Street in Leeds to serve the Holbeck Urban Village and businesses in the south of the city, which they say will help with the regeneration in the area. Metro are to be contacted to see if they can help getting a service in the area.

If it was to happen, I would imagine it'll be either a new service or re-routing an existing service, probably from Whitehall Road.

www.guardian.co.uk/leeds/2010/apr/29/bus-service-holbeck-urban-village

[angrycommuter]

The 55 already sneaks into part of Holbeck Urban Village. Could this be diverted to route round more of the area both into and out of Leeds?

The 202/3 and 220/1/2 could turn left after Bridgewater Tower and head through the area and then run into Leeds via the 229 route. The inward journey wouldn't miss any stops, but if it would add 5 minutes to the journey time at least.

Possibly sending the 3 or 3A down this way, or even splitting the 2 into 2 and 2A to send one of them round Holbeck?

I don't think funding a new service will work, unless it's a type of Free City Bus 2 that serves more areas to the south of the city (Clarence Dock, Crown Point, Urban Village) that runs only during office hours.

[rwilkes]

It is not so much that people are too lazy to walk to the bus stops, though some are. Its that councillors do not know what buses cost to run, and they do not want to know. With Quality contracts there will be pressure for loads on uneconomical routes and your councill tax bills will be like those for London. And they will cut many Overground routes to every 15 or 20 mins to try save money. They will then be perplexed when the Overground users go back to their cars!

[westyorkshirebus]

I doubt any Arriva services would be changed, if it happens, it'll be one of First's lesser services in the area such as the 61, 64 or 90.

[A1YBG]

May 4, 2010 20:27:05 GMT 1 westyorkshirebus said:

I doubt any Arriva services would be changed, if it happens, it'll be one of First's lesser services in the area such as the 61, 64 or 90.

Agree with Arriva services how many people u see on Dewsbury Road get on? Most residents in Leeds have FirstDay and FirstWeeks etc and only ones that would use this are MetroCard and Pass holders.

[mjn]

May 4, 2010 10:43:17 GMT 1 rwilkes said:

It is not so much that people are too lazy to walk to the bus stops, though some are. Its that councillors do not know what buses cost to run, and they do not want to know. With Quality contracts there will be pressure for loads on uneconomical routes and your councill tax bills will be like those for London. And they will cut many Overground routes to every 15 or 20 mins to try save money. They will then be perplexed when the Overground users go back to their cars!

An admirable attempt at keeping the status quo in place for the big groups' benefit, but a load of rubbish. London council tax bills (not exactly massively higher than Leeds anyway), yet poorer levels of service (most certainly not the case in London). Presumably these proposals to waste money on loads of uneconomical routes and remove necessary capacity from busy services, and generally just make things worse due to the inherent inferiority of holistic transport planning from a local authority vs the status quo, are what will result from years of planning and will pass a value for money test. Presumably this is what SYPTE have achieved in Doncaster!

You present this false image of a load of clueless councillors being 'handed the keys' to the network planning, and setting about spending as much as possible on as little as possible with gay abandon. Presumably professional staff will be involved with the planning and costing of the networks, and WYITA members and councillors will rightly be involved jn the process to ensure that the results meet the objectives they set and falls within the budget, to represent the people in their wards etc, as it should be.

[dwarfer1979]

May 5, 2010 2:17:19 GMT 1 mjn said:

An admirable attempt at keeping the status quo in place for the big groups' benefit, but a load of rubbish. London council tax bills (not exactly massively higher than Leeds anyway), yet poorer levels of service (most certainly not the case in London). Presumably these proposals to waste money on loads of uneconomical routes and remove necessary capacity from busy services, and generally just make things worse due to the inherent inferiority of holistic transport planning from a local authority vs the status quo, are what will result from years of planning and will pass a value for money test. Presumably this is what SYPTE have achieved in Doncaster!

You present this false image of a load of clueless councillors being 'handed the keys' to the network planning, and setting about spending as much as possible on as little as possible with gay abandon. Presumably professional staff will be involved with the planning and costing of the networks, and WYITA members and councillors will rightly be involved jn the process to ensure that the results meet the objectives they set and falls within the budget, to represent the people in their wards etc, as it should be.

Well that is generally what happens when councils get involved in running bus services, lots of lower frequency services trying to serve every possible journey to satisfy every pressure group meaning no-one understands the bus network and the casual user with a car is put off. Given my experience of dealings with certain authorities they are unwilling to make any change that leads to any form of protest, even if the change benefits many and incoveniences a handful of infrequent users. Let's remember that the previous period of regulation and authority control was hardly a paragon of quality or reliability, though I assume that would be less of an issue this time round as the TC should keep their watching brief over service reliability.

Additionally for the record the London bus network receives HALF[/u] of the total public subsidy for the entire UK bus industry to get the service levels it gets, and that is in a city that was already set up to promote bus use, London has always had difficult & expensive parking, a large traditional commuter flow and an unpleasant and difficult drive into the centre, unlike most other major UK cities. So this leads us to conclude that to replicate London service levels in PTE areas would require at least a doubling of the public subsidy to the bus industry, unlikely to ever happen and given that according to independent analysis only Stagecoach of the big groups is making sufficient profit to actually finance fleet replacement etc properly it would appear there is little saving in reducing profit for the operators (most are making much less than PTEG tends to claim).

[mjn]

But the council would not be running the services. It just smacks of a desperate attempt by the industry to stop what seems inevitable by throwing in a few red herrings. Presumably London achieved its growth by running lots of low frequency services trying to serve every possible journey to satisfy every pressure group meaning no-one understands the bus network and the casual user with a car is put off? Erm, no.

Do councils themselves run any bus operations in this country? No. So nothing 'generally happens', because the situation does not exist.

Many cities have difficult and unpleasant drives, not on the scale of in London of course, but just look at the congestion in Leeds! I have no knowledge of the figures regarding funding in London or elsewhere and you haven't supplied them, however for the scheme to have progressed this far, as well as what one can gather from the documentation etc, it's a safe bet that the scheme does in fact take account of expected levels of funding.

Frankly, it's about time the industry piped down with this nonsense. Stagecoach aside, it seems more than happy to participate in places such as London and some European countries where the state plans the networks to some degree, and this never results in these nonsensical apocalyptic visions some pretend would somehow happen uniquely in Britain. Very few places in the world seem to employ anything remotely resembling our 'model' and with good reason, certainly nowhere else in this part of Europe does, and we have very little to show for it ourselves. Yes it will result in the loss of some control and potentially some assets or services, but if these operators are as good as they seem to think then surely they will rise to the challenge and make it work.

[danielnew]

May 7, 2010 15:57:53 GMT 1 mjn said:

But the council would not be running the services. It just smacks of a desperate attempt by the industry to stop what seems inevitable by throwing in a few red herrings. Presumably London achieved its growth by running lots of low frequency services trying to serve every possible journey to satisfy every pressure group meaning no-one understands the bus network and the casual user with a car is put off? Erm, no.

Do councils themselves run any bus operations in this country? No. So nothing 'generally happens', because the situation does not exist.

Many cities have difficult and unpleasant drives, not on the scale of in London of course, but just look at the congestion in Leeds! I have no knowledge of the figures regarding funding in London or elsewhere and you haven't supplied them, however for the scheme to have progressed this far, as well as what one can gather from the documentation etc, it's a safe bet that the scheme does in fact take account of expected levels of funding.

Frankly, it's about time the industry piped down with this nonsense. Stagecoach aside, it seems more than happy to participate in places such as London and some European countries where the state plans the networks to some degree, and this never results in these nonsensical apocalyptic visions some pretend would somehow happen uniquely in Britain. Very few places in the world seem to employ anything remotely resembling our 'model' and with good reason, certainly nowhere else in this part of Europe does, and we have very little to show for it ourselves. Yes it will result in the loss of some control and potentially some assets or services, but if these operators are as good as they seem to think then surely they will rise to the challenge and make it work.

I think you'll find some councils already operate municipal fleets Blackpool Borough Transport, Lothian Buses.

I agree with you on the London issue, the reason new services fail to work here is that provision is too sparse to begin with! New TfL routes operate around every 15-20 minutes from 0500-0030 Daily in the remotest outskirts of London. You can make a decision to live somewhere on the route if you can guarantee such levels of service. It takes a lot of guts to put your neck on the line by providing such a service but it may pay off - First is too scared to take a risk.

Perhaps by flooding the area with a visible presence of buses initially it may take off, just operating a backwater, unadvertised service operated by non-descript First group will not suffice and yes people may argue Geldards operated the 66B which was undoubtedly a failure but that is because no-one in their right mind would rely on such unstable, low quality services that fail to register on people's minds! Diverting routes just adds to the journey time and competes even less favourably with the car as if it isn't bad enough already, dedicated routes are the way forward.

As daft as it sounds the colour of the bus can make a difference - dark blue is hardly eye-catching and besides the public thought they were school buses and for good reason!!! What Metro need to do is purchase a fleet of say 6 Enviro 200's paint them in red or some ghastly colour i.e. bright orange/pink furnish them with leather seats, air conditioning and operate a dedicated shuttle which is contracted out to the best bidder under a QC.

Talking of bus stops, the spacing of stops in Leeds is a joke, there should be half the spacing between stops in some areas, we have closer spacing of stops in Somerset and Hertfordshire!!! Metro seem to think that only people living in council properties use the bus as these are the areas where stop spacing is significantly closer and where shelters are provided, its no wonder the middle classes deserted buses in West Yorkshire (because Metro are providing inadaquate infrastructure although their timetable information and website is better than most) when other parts of the country have seen growing patronage (Excluding concessionary travel) namely Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Hertfordshire, Essex, Surrey, Wiltshire, South Yorkshire, Nottingham, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire and London.

[dwarfer1979]

Having looked it up TfL receives approx £650million per year in subsidy to operate London's bus network in some of the best operating territory in the world, the rest of the country spends approx £330 million in total on subsidised services (I have seen it quoted as half of total expenditure but looking at a Commission for Integrated Transport report it appears approx one third, with another third being concessionary fares).

I didn't say councils ran, I said got involved, i.e: tendering (plus commercial changes where the operator involves the local authority) - which is where my experience in dealing with various authorities across the country, though it also applies to council owned operators who operate in a more traditional manner - fortunately not many are left.

I accept there is an issue in certain areas (almost always associated with one major operator who seem less able to provide the service customers deserve than other operators) but that does not mean that councils would be a better option. If the government and councils are prepared to put in the money and political willpower needed (as in London) I see less of an issue but this is just not on the cards. PTEG merely states that they can make efficiencies through reducing the profit the operators make to pay for it and that you can get a London system without paying London costs, both are very dubious assumptions. Can you see any West Yorkshire politician backing congestion charging & higher parking charges enough to force them through as Ken Livingstone did with Congestion Charging in London. As for whether councillers/residents in outlying districts would be happy subisdising the big cities (the so called 'Bromley question' where residents in Bromley took London Transport to court over their taxes subsidising other areas of London while they saw little improvement) is another thorny issues - they may be united not but will it last when the bill arrives, would Keighley or Pontefract see the improvements to justfy the bill that professionals think will transpire.

Given that bus use in increasing across most parts of the country in what are poor operating territory you have to ask what is different in PTE areas (and since Stagecoach are showing growth in South Manchester it raises other questions) and PTEG saying that Cambridgeshire, Surrey/Hampshire & Sussex and other shire counties are good bus territory is just unhelpful rubbish. Certain operators need to buck up their ideas but the problem is that the only solution so far raised is to punish everyone for one groups failures - the 'you're all staying behind until the culprit owns up' method.

As for anti-car measures I grew up just outside London and wouldn't ever dream of driving my car into Central London (even before Congestion Charging came in) but I have happily driven into the centre of Leeds, Manchester & Birmingham without any issues, there is no comparison in general traffic and other issues (London appears to have got better since Congestion Charging).

Operators main beef with the plans for regulation is that none of the local authorities are talking about paying operators for their assets (and the routes and goodwill are assets that are worth substantial amounts of money). This plan amounts to state sponsered theft, they sold the operations for large amounts of money and not want it back for free, they may say that the big companies still have the equipment and move it elsewhere, and that may be true for them but not for operators such as Halifax JOC who could lose their entire business for no compensation at all.

As for the rest of Europe, no one else in the world has a public transport network like the UK. They may have pockets of excellence in major cities but get outside the major cities and high speed rail lines and there is almost nothing (there is no European equivilant of the 36 or Coastliner let alone the more normal services). Which raises the question of who organises cross-boundary services, TfL subisidies has destroyed cross-boundary services as they can't meet TfL standards to receive subsidies so they have to charge commercial fares (which are higher) on some of the most profitable sections, not helped when TfL extend services to the first town out of the area on central london fares.

If PTEG and other pro-regulationists answered the issues of funding, political will, decision making and fairness they would get less argument with the principle (though operators I'm sure would still feel they were the best option - rightly or wrongly), Stagecoach probably still would argue, their position on London & Europe indicates where their strengths lie the rest would probably be somewhat happier.

[mjn]

Never seen any figures to suggest that there is a national trend for increasing bus use, I've always been given the impression that the opposite is the case in fact. Not sure what you mean by punishing everyone either?

I don't accept that the entire premise of such schemes is flawed because some details need to be clarified. Yes the operators and authorities need to sort out what will happen to their assets but that is hardly my concern, my concern is to see the provision of a decent integrated transport system, as opposed to the segregated jumble of different timetables, tariffs etc and I care little for how much operators can make out of it, I don't think you'll find much public sympathy even amongst the disinterested. Who is responsible for running the bus you catch should be irrelevant, and without a state body taking charge of planning these things as a whole it will never happen.

Actually, I think you'll find that in countries with more comparable geography and population density to our own (not France for instance, where your description best meets), provision is quite good across the board. German speaking countries, the Benelux etc, have fairly comprehensive rural coverage, as well as more unified tariffs and timetables across the board (certain aspects of the new Dutch smartcard have mucked up the tariff side of things a bit but it is still far simpler than here!). There is however not a massive amount of high speed rail in these countries as a rule, though Belgium has pretty good HSR connections to its neighbours. There aren't so many long-distance trunk routes but that's because on the whole there isn't much need for them! They do exist in some cases where trains don't, having loads of pointless competition isn't exactly proof of the supremacy of our way of doing things. Yes, I am very glad nowhere else in the world has a public transport 'network' like ours!

[rwilkes]

Every European QC or franchise system requires huge London-level subsidies, no-one anywhere has got it 'for free' like PTEG says is possible. We are now in a EU wide financial crisis so how are these subsidies to be found for QC's? And PTEG’s figures are wrong and easy to discredit, but the pro QC politicians and officers simply do not care that the figures do not add up!
The deregulated version works well in call UK towns and cities where the councils are enthusiastic buses and put proper bus priority and Pak& Ride in place.
QC’s put the buses under ‘public control’ i.e. local politicians – those people who keep the potholes in the road and fail to grit when it snows, and get just abt everything they do wrong. I simply cannot understand why anyone would want these people to be in charge of our buses, however much they hate particular bus companies.