Bus firm is dictating when we can work
I noticed that this year First Bus is not operating any buses on New Year’s Day. For some people, they might agree, but if you work in retail or in the hospital or the hospitality industry or for any businesses that opens on New Year’s Day, then how can WECA and the transport authority sign off on running no bus services? It is bad enough on Boxing Day with no buses but New Year’s Day as well? It is bad.
I am lucky that the Bath Bus Company is still running. It just means that I have a 45-minute walk to and from the bus stop and that I will get home much later at night, but others might not be so lucky and may have to rely on taxis to get to work and back home.
How can the local authority promote alternative transport rather than cars if it lets the main bus company provide no services for people who have to work?
First Bus says it’s because it is short of drivers. Then it is time to break down the bus licences so that one company cannot dictate to the public when they travel to work or not. There used to be buses on normal days to get to people to work by 6am, but that is not an option either now.
If the local authority wants people not to use cars then the bus services need to meet the public’s needs.
Debbie Clifton
Bath
Your unnamed correspondent (“Trams sound fine but who will fund them?”, December 3) who wonders where the money comes for trams needs to have no fear. The UK Government can borrow as much money as it wants to providing it is not wasted on importing luxury goods and other consumption. Providing money is spent on infrastructure which gives a return the UK Government is able even today to take out 20-year loans at effectively 0 per cent real interest rate. All other governments have hugely overspent during the pandemic so we are in roughly the same position and money is always looking for a secure home, and government bonds fulfil this.
The mechanism is simple and laid down in statute – obtain a public works act order (similar to the Act of Parliament which enables the GWR to be built from Paddington to Bristol) and, hey presto, you
can build your tram. To obtain a PWAO is, of course, expensive and could cost £2 to £4 million, so the way to do this is in a series of increasingly complex and expensive feasibility studies, stopping if at any point the results indicate it will not be reasonably cost-effective. The Public Works Loan Board will make money available to such a scheme at very low interest rates providing it passes the Department of Trade cost benefit analysis.
Regarding Mike Fear’s concern about tram route access (“Emphasis on roads not easily reversed”, December 3), there is no reason why the tram cannot negotiate the route he suggests along Camden Crescent to Larkhall – these roads are quite wide enough, and trams can tackle all the hills in Bath, as there are none steeper than those in Lisbon, whose hills trams have been ascending for 80 years. Also the streets in Lisbon are much narrower than Bath – it’s worth Googling “Trams Narrow Streets Lisbon” to see videos. A tram could, in fact, negotiate Upper Borough Walls, which are quite narrow, and exit turning right at the Guildhall. All the other routes shown on the Bath Trams website are fully accessible to trams.
We also advocate investigating the feasibility of tram connection to outlying areas such as Keynsham, Bristol and Radstock-midsomer Norton, although rural areas will have to be serviced no doubt by conventional bus services – trams only work on dense routes.
Regarding freight, which Mr Fear mentions, there is no reason why HGVS which currently enter Bath and drop off wheeled baskets of goods at five or six points in town, could not drop off these wheeled baskets at a single out-of-town tram stop and have them delivered by off-peak trams.
Regarding supplies of lithium for battery-powered vehicles, we advocate either overhead wired trams such as those running past the Coliseum, or in Vienna with wires attached to the Grand Opera House – it seems a small price to pay for clear streets and air, and no one complained about the wires in the past, whereas they do complain about the traffic. But if the people of Bath do not like overhead wires, a cheaper solution is zero carbon or renewable hydrogen-powered trams, both of which are now available.
Dave Andrews
Bath Trams