Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
DARTFORD TO DUNGENESS FOR JUST £10!
From now until the end of March, single bus journeys are being capped at just £2 in a bid to combat the cost-of-living crisis. We challenged reporter Rhys Griffiths to travel from Dartford to Dungeness in a day. Here’s how he got on, including meeting one
It is cold, crisp and clear as I make the short walk from Dartford railway station to the bus stops lining nearby Home Gardens in the centre of the town. The time is just a little after 8am. Commuters and school kids mill about waiting for their buses as I try to get my bearings.
I’ve not set myself a rigid timetable for the day’s journey. This is partly because I quite like the idea of just seeing how things pan out - and partly because when I asked Google for a journey plan from inside the M25 to the shingle expanse of Dungeness by bus, the algorithm essentially told me I was mad.
I’ve plotted what looks like the most sensible route by local buses - via Medway, Maidstone and Ashford - and my only concrete aim is to reach the far corner of the county while the sun is still up.
Hopefully in the process we can discover just how easy it is to make county-spanning voyages on the cheap, thanks to a three-month fare campaign which began at the start of the year and runs until the end of March.
It sees the majority of single bus journeys, regardless of distance travelled, capped to just £2 in a bid to ease the costof-living crisis. Announcing the fare cap plan back in September, the then Transport Secretary Grant Shapps MP described the move as “direct help to thousands of households across the country”. “Buses are by far and away the most used form of public transport,” he said.
“So ensuring that almost all bus journeys are no more than £2 will assist passengers over the winter months.
“This £60 million boost will mean everyone can affordably get to work, education, the shops and doctor’s appointments.”
It had taken me three trains and a peak-time ticket costing £40.20 to get from home in Folkestone to Dartford by rail. How would the return journey by bus compare?
8.30AM, DARTFORD TO GRAVESEND
I’d targeted the 480 as the bus to convey me to Gravesend, but when a single-decker with ‘Fastrack’ branding pulled up with ‘Gravesend’ billed as its destination I was happy to jump on board.
After all, 10 minutes here or there could be all the difference between making a tight connection or finding myself with a lengthy wait in the January chill.
It soon becomes clear that I am not simply riding a bus, but a bus rapid transit (BRT) route which - for the non-transport geeks among you - is designed to be somewhere between a regular bus and a tram. By operating on dedicated infrastructure, the idea is that the BRT speeds along to a much more reliable timetable because it is separated from the potentially snarled-up main roads.
It seems to be working this morning, as our packed bus whizzes past queues of slow-moving rush hour traffic as it travels on free-flowing bus lanes. The bus soon empties out as students pile off at the Leigh Academy, and soon we are winding our way through the housing developments popping up alongside the Thames between Dartford and Gravesend.
Millions of pounds have been invested in the Fastrack scheme and its supporting infrastructure, and as far as I can see it has to be a positive. Buses are the work-horses of our public
transport system. But it can be immensely frustrating when - and I am looking at you, Canterbury - they are stuck idling in gridlocked traffic. By making them reliable, frequent and less prone to delays, hopefully more people will choose them for short journeys in and around urban areas.
Whether Fastrack beat the 480 this morning, who knows. But I am in Gravesend at about 9.15am with enough time to grab some breakfast to go before boarding my next ride onwards to Medway.
9.40AM, GRAVESEND TO CHATHAM
What a difference an hour makes. Another single-decker bus, but this time I am the sole passenger on the 190 as we pull away from Barrack Row and begin the journey to Chatham.
The bus itself is comfortable and clean, and I am pleased to see there are sockets for charging devices. We wind our way through Higham and Strood, the seats filling as we approach the Medway and cross the bridge into Rochester.
This is very much the most uneventful leg of the journey, but it is the perfect encapsulation of what buses provide to those who use them regularly. Many of the passengers are older folk, most likely using their free bus passes to pop into town for some shopping - and for those retirees who may no longer wish to or afford to run a car, the bus can be a real lifeline.
An off-peak single from Gravesend to Chatham by train will set you back £6.20. From now until the end of March the bus will get you there for just £2.
10.32AM, CHATHAM TO MAIDSTONE
I’m delighted when the 101 pulls up and it is a double-decker. I can think of few better ways to see the world pass by than from the front seats of the top deck of a bus. I am less delighted, however, when a chap who looks a little worse for wear decides the seat directly across the aisle from me is the one for him on an otherwise largely empty vehicle.
My strongly-held suspicion is that the one-litre bottle of energy drink he is enthusiastically swigging from may contain something a little strong for this hour of the morning. We’re barely into the Medway suburbs before my hunch is proved right.
“Hair of the dog for me,” he confides. “Slept in a phone box last night.”
And so that most British of dilemmas rears its head once more: the talkative fellow passenger, and the best way to handle a conversation which really could go in all kinds of directions.
I enquire about his intended destination, a small part of me hoping he’s only looking for a brief chat to pass the time for a couple of stops. “Hastings,” he replies. “It’s cheaper and the train is harder to ‘jack’ these days.”
I must admit that I did feel a growing affinity. Not for vodka before midday, just for a felwanderer low taking multiple buses on a meandering trip to the coast. My travelling companion seems keen to open up, so I pause my podcast, remove my ear buds and listen to what he has to say. “I’m living in a crack den - walked in on people shooting up the other night. I’m going down to Hastings to see about housing.”
He goes on to admit a brush with the law, caught carrying a knife.
His fear is he could be looking at a spell inside.
But he tells me he is determined to turn things around, and if he can find council accommodation in Sussex where he has family - then that will potentially be a step in the right direction.
I hope so. Arriving in Maidstone, we part ways with a fist bump and I wish him all the best, for today’s journey and for the future.
11.16AM, MAIDSTONE TO ASHFORD
I’m really striking it lucky with changes so far, and have just 10 minutes to wait for my connection in Maidstone. This leg of the journey is where we really start to see some of the best of the Garden of England, passing through pretty little villages like Harrietsham, Lenham and Charing en route to Ashford.
The sun is now high in a clear blue sky, so much so that I am eager to take a seat upstairs in the shade, switching now and then as our course through the Kent countryside changes.
I’ve been on the road for three hours or so by this point. It hardly feels like it, though, and I am starting to think that if you are in no great hurry to reach your destination then the bus really can be quite a relaxing way of travelling longer distances. It takes about an hour to reach Ashford. The train will take about half the time, but will set you back almost £12. I’ll leave you to judge which is the better option.
1.15PM, ASHFORD TO DUNGENESS
Unfortunately the timetables leave me with almost an hour to kill in Ashford, putting me off what had begun to feel almost like a blistering pace relatively speaking.
The final leg of the trip does really bring home the change of scenery since I began my journey inside the M25 this morning.
Once clear of Ashford we swoop down onto the great, flat expanse of Romney Marsh and trundle onwards towards the shingle outcrop of Dungeness, protruding into the Channel with its hulking great nuclear power station and a pair of rather more slender lighthouses.
It is a glorious winter’s afternoon as I bound off the bus outside The Pilot Pub at Lyddon-sea, which is heaving with families tucking into plates of fish and chips. Tempted though I am to join them, I decide to trudge a little further to the water’s edge where I can at last say my voyage to the sea is complete. I look at my watch and see it’s very nearly six hours since we pulled away from Home Gardens at 8.30am, and the journey as a whole has cost me the princely sum of £10. Sure, if you’re in a great hurry it may still be best to let the train take the strain. But if you have some time on your hands, and fancy stopping off en route, then the bus is no fuss at all.