Don’t take the bus away – it’s a lifeline
I write on behalf of the residents of Bathampton who now have no bus service in the village.
We are told that it is because Weca has not been able to find any bus company prepared to tender for this route.
Ironically, First Bus has recently reduced fares to encourage more people to use the buses!
Many in Bathampton are now going to be isolated, without access to medical appointments and unable to get to shops and, probably more importantly, unable to meet friends. Company is vital for the large number of elderly people in Bathampton living on their own. This situation will result in more loneliness and an increase in mental health problems.
Personally I have written to Jacob Rees Mogg, our MP. I was assured by his representative over a week ago that I would receive a reply. To date, I am still waiting for this letter.
Bathampton Parish Council has also done very little to help us. Probably because most of them never use a bus.
In Bathampton we have two retirement estates – Harbutts and St Nicholas Court – and a bus service is an essential lifeline for the residents, to live a fulfilling life.
Those that drive have been encouraged to use our bus service instead of using their cars as we are part of the Clean Air Zone initiative.
Please can I ask the residents of Bath to support us in our fight for the No 11 to be reinstated.
Name and address supplied
With the local Conservatives rehashing their 2015 ‘Stop Bath Stalling’ campaign, with the subsequent four years in power at best described as ‘Watch Bath Stall,’ and the recent letter deriding the Liveable (low traffic) Neighbourhoods there is more than enough evidence out there to counter these anti-resident positions.
A recent academic paper provides the answers Bath has been looking for. It is titled ‘A dozen effective interventions to reduce car use in European cities: Lessons learned from a meta-analysis and transition management.’
The interventions, in effectiveness order, are:
1. Congestion charging
2. Parking and traffic control
3. Limited traffic zones, ie Liveable [low traffic] Neighbourhoods
4. Mobility services for commuters [park/link and ride, direct bus services, transit hubs, street corner shared mobility hubs (e-scooter/ebike/e-cargobike/e-car hire and EV charging)]
5. Workplace parking levy
6. Workplace travel planning
7. University travel planning
8. Mobility services for university
9. Car sharing
10. School travel planning
11. Personalised travel planning
12. App for sustainable mobility. Given those 12 measures, only the top three have been PROVEN to be highly effective at tackling vehicular traffic congestion.
The council, given the Tory commissioned ‘skin of your teeth, let’s plonk traffic lights on Queen Square and hope we win the election’ Clean Air Zone has failed to reduce air pollution (NOX) to legal levels and should immediately be upgraded to include older cars or even a bolder ULEZ.
The council should also lobby the government to allow congestion charging which the introduction of road user pricing due to the inexorable rise of electric cars will be easier to achieve.
The council should roll out resident parking zones across the city, removing tens of thousands of free commuter parking spaces from residential areas, significantly tackling rush-hour traffic and unnecessary car ingress into the city.
The council should also introduce a blanket 20mph speed limit across all urban areas.
When Cllr Manda Rigby recently stated in a Cleveland Bridge interview that she wanted to see 20mph speed limits in the city centre to make walking and cycling safer, she was right, but the city centre cannot be the only place where walking/ wheeling, cycling and scooting is safe. It needs to be safe in every urban area. That means every village, town, and city road in B&NES should be 20mph.
Finally, the council should lobby the Metro Mayor and West of England Combined Authority to bring in a workplace parking levy which should stop the university’s car park building programme in its
tracks and encourage many employees that could leave their car at home to do so.
All of this extra revenue can be ring-fenced to improve public transport (buses, trains, and e-scooters) and invest in enabling walking/wheeling and cycling/ scooting.
If you truly want to solve Bath’s traffic problems then look to other cities across Europe to see what has already worked. Use their experience.
Watching Bath Stall has not worked for the last 100 years. Other cities have shown the way. If not what they have successfully done, then what is your answer?
Adam Reynolds Timsbury