6 March 2013
Concern over cuts to secondary Glasgow bus routes
Transform Scotland have today responded to First Glasgow's consultation on its proposed bus network changes:
Dear Sir or Madam,
Transform Scotland welcomes this opportunity to comment on First’s proposals for alterations to its Glasgow network. We recognise the need for First to maintain a sound commercial basis for the network in Glasgow, and that in difficult financial circumstances, this may from time to time necessitate thorough revision.
However, the scale and details of the changes proposed do give us significant concerns:
- More minor inner-city routes being cut from 20 to 30-minute daytime frequencies, with a very low level of provision in evenings and on Sundays, as well as complete withdrawal from some areas.
- More 'branches' on services without route-number differentiation, something which has already happened on several First routes in Glasgow, and which has already apparently caused confusion among passengers.
- Some of the route number changes appear to be excessive: many of these route numbers are thoroughly familiar to the Glasgow bus-using public, have existed for half-a-century or more and changes seem likely just to cause confusion and alienation.
- Given the well-known problems of traffic management throughout the city, but in particular within the city centre, an increase in the number of cross-city routes will result in a decrease in reliability, especially for those less-frequently served outer suburban branches on the network.
Finally, we feel that the period allowed for public consultation on these substantial changes to an important public service has been short and worry that, given only 2 days between closure of the consultation and submission of finalised plans to the Traffic Commissioners, full consideration may not be able to be given to the results of the consultation.
On the other hand, there are aspects of the proposed revisions that we would broadly welcome:
- Co-ordinating services on specific corridors into 5 or 6-minute frequencies, and more specifically, into 10 or 15-minute headways evenings and Sundays.
- High frequencies being maintained on key corridors.
- The ‘SimpliCITY’ concept, with a number of high-frequency routes across the city, together with a plan for improving the quality of those routes.
In conclusion, then, Transform Scotland feels that while changes to the network may be required, alterations of this scale should have a longer period of consultation and subsequent preparation. In particular, we feel that within these changes, more rather than less route differentiation and fewer rather than more lengthy cross-city routes would better serve the travelling public. Co-ordination of corridor frequencies is a positive development but can be done across different numbered routes. This has been done before and is proposed in some instances within these revisions. We feel that abandoning the widespread renumbering would allay significant fears and negative reactions to these proposals.
We trust that you will find these comments helpful.
With best regards
Calum McCallum
Board member, Transform Scotland
On behalf of Transform Scotland