TRANSPORT | General (Non Metrolink)

[DUBAI]

It is significantly quicker on the roads without them.

although the OP busstop may have now lost "the cowboy" for good

[DUBAI]

Does anyone know if UK North's post match bus links to Old Trafford have been replaced, or am i better off getting a tram?

[majormystery]

City centre parking charges 'doomed'

PLANS for evening and Sunday parking charges in Manchester look set to collapse after a senior Labour councillor branded them "crass and crude".

Pat Karney, the council's city centre spokesman, said in a letter to the M.E.N. that the proposed charges would "penalise city residents and modestly-paid city centre workers".

Coun Karney's Labour group control the town hall and have the final say on the proposals, which would see motorists charged up to £2.20 an hour to park in street bays from 8am to midnight, seven days a week.
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Currently, the bays are free after 6pm and all day on Sundays.

A massive protest against the plans has erupted since details were revealed in the M.E.N. on January 12.

More than 3,000 have contacted us through www. manchestereveningnews. co.uk, with 96 per cent of respondents to our on-line poll voting against the move.

Even the Greater Manchester Chamber - which originally appeared supportive - has since spoken out against the new charges.

Coun Karney, in a joint letter with Labour council candidate Kathy Crotty, writes: "We do not believe that these crass and crude parking charges will solve these problems or benefit Manchester. We call on the council to withdraw these charges and set up a task force that listens to residents and workers."

The letter comes as the council prepares to end its consultation process. After looking at the results, town hall chiefs could publish a legal notice and proceed with charges. The M.E.N. has pledged to pass on all your responses to the council ahead of the deadline.

The intervention by such a senior figure as Coun Karney will increase speculation the Labour group will decide to ditch the plans.

[andysimo123]

It won't happen now because if the people don't want it and the MPs don't want it. Its not going to pass is it.

[jrb]

It's not going to be easy to persuade car drivers to change to public transport with fare increases like this.

Revealed: Huge bus fares increase


PRICES: Going up...A HUGE rise in bus fares is set to hit hundreds of thousands of children, pensioners and disabled people across Greater Manchester.

Concessionary tickets are expected to increase from 50p to about 85p in a bid to overcome a cash shortage and cover the cost of free off-peak fares for pensioners.

Almost 400,000 children will be affected as well as over-60s and disabled people travelling in rush hour.

Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority (GMPTA) was today due to consider an increase of 10p on concessionary fares to 60p for each single journey. But now that increase is expected to be much higher - about 70 per cent - after a ruling by the Department for Transport. Yesterday, the department ordered that bus companies should be paid more by the GMPTA to cover the costs of a government initiative to provide free off-peak fares for pensioners.

Transport bosses say they cannot raise the extra cash from council tax so they will have to increase fares or cut services.

Concessionary fares are available to under-16s all day and to over-60s and disabled people before 9.30am.

GMPTA chairman Roger Jones said: "The leaders are under pressure over council tax so I doubt very much whether we can persuade them to increase our levy.

'Choices'

"That leaves us with two choices - to increase the concessionary fare to half fare, which is an average of 85p, or cut back on the £30m budget for supported bus services, which includes £10m for school buses and those routes we subsidise because they are not commercially viable.

"I would be very sad to see those cut back but we are in a very difficult position. Why the government has done this I don't know."

The introduction of free off-peak fares for pensioners means that GMPTA needs to find an extra £3.4m before the end of next month and another £3.5m in the next financial year.

This comes on top of the £22m it already pays to the operators to cover the free fares.

The authority's annual budget of more than £150m is paid from council tax and has to be agreed by the leaders of Greater Manchester's 10 district councils.

The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) voted last week to limit the rise to four per cent this year - which would have led to the 10p rise in concessionary fares originally due to be agreed today. But the new financial pressures mean the rises look set be much higher.

The crisis also looks set to lead to plans to lease more train carriages to ease overcrowding being put on hold.

Congestion

The problems come just a week after leaders of AGMA ordered officials to draw up details of proposals for congestion charging in Greater Manchester as part of a bid to the government in July for money from its Transport Innovation Fund.

It wants a grant to improve public transport and pay for Metrolink extensions to Oldham and Rochdale town centres, the airport, and Ashton under Lyne. And it also comes as the government is considering giving local councils more power to control bus services after a campaign by the GMPTA - backed by the M.E.N. - after `bus wars' brought the city centre to a halt in September.

Earlier this month the M.E.N. revealed the biggest bus company in Greater Manchester was raising fares by up to 10 per cent.

First Manchester blamed rises in fuel prices and the need to bring in new buses.

The rises came on the back of other increases within Greater Manchester for the System One travel cards which cover all operators and went up by an average seven per cent on January 2.

[flange]

ya am well annoyed over this i have to get the bus every day to college and back is going to cost way more know i dont mind the 50p bus fare but raising it to 85p is too much especially considering most of the time your stuck in traffic and can never get a seat sometime is just stupid

[andysimo123]

Its not a surprise. Everything is going up in price.

[spacepostman]

I think it's ludicrous pensioners get free travel after 9:30 when the rest of us pay over the odds for it. My monthly system one bus/train pass is £81, it's gone up by about 8% this year and now I know why.

[Cherguevara]

Originally Posted by andysimo123

Its not a surprise. Everything is going up in price.

Well that's inflation, a universal economic phenomena and not something we can avoid.

I think it's ludicrous pensioners get free travel after 9:30 when the rest of us pay over the odds for it. My monthly system one bus/train pass is £81, it's gone up by about 8% this year and now I know why.

You think it's ludicrous that the poorest demographic group with the lowest (i.e. non-existant) earning potential are allowed to travel for nothing in exchange for suffering through the depression, fighting nazism, undergoing rationing and post-war austerity and effectively subsidising through their labours the social advancement of a large proportion of their childrens generation. The robbing bastards.

[andysimo123]

Originally Posted by Cherguevara

Well that's inflation, a universal economic phenomena and not something we can avoid.



You think it's ludicrous that the poorest demographic group with the lowest (i.e. non-existant) earning potential are allowed to travel for nothing in exchange for suffering through the depression, fighting nazism, undergoing rationing and post-war austerity and effectively subsidising through their labours the social advancement of a large proportion of their childrens generation. The robbing bastards.

50p to 85p is not inflation, that's a 35% increase. If it was increased by inflation, why didn't they do it year on year and not in one massive go.

[spacepostman]

Concessionary maybe, but free when other people who are just as poor and hard done by, and yes fair enough who are not over 65 have to pay up to £3 for a single journey and when the existing transport system still does not reach many pensioners or serve them well at all in the first place? Except maybe for Ring and Ride and Local Link which pensioners still have to pay. It's just that the PTE's priorities are all wrong. Personaly Che matey, I feel Red Ken had the right idea - subsidise Public Transport so it can be free for all of the county's citizens and then force people off the roads, only then will our transport system be viable.

[Eastisleast]

Originally Posted by spacepostman

I think it's ludicrous pensioners get free travel after 9:30 when the rest of us pay over the odds for it. My monthly system one bus/train pass is £81, it's gone up by about 8% this year and now I know why.

I hope you pay council tax, like these 'pampered' pensioners do.

[Cherguevara]

Prices always going up is inflation, that's how it works. It is the sign of a growing economy. Individual prices go up at different rates, and the inflation is merely the average of this. 35% does seem excessive, but perhaps they thought changing it every year would just confuse the easilly confused elderley. The real point was that complaining about prices going up like it's some kind of evil scheme is ridiculous.

Spacepostman - perhaps vast transport subsidies are the answer, but since that was the sin that did the GLC (and SYC, GMC, WMC etc) in it seems unlikely that it is one that anyone is currently able to pursue. What you were proposing was the removal of a benefit to an underresourced group because other poor groups don't benefit from it. While I see your point that this isn't fair, it hardly seems fair to strip a group of people effectilvely unable to supplement their meagre incomes and then stretch the same amount of money over a greater pool of people and thereby dilute the ability of that money to do any good. I'm all for equality, but not for an equality of destitution.

[spacepostman]

Read what I actually said.... I never proposed to remove the free travel for pensioners, and said nothing of the sort! Think you haver got me all wrong there guys. I just said it was ludicious that the system only allows pensioners & disabled folk free travel on the network, although it is a good place to start. Although I wouldn't thought it be far wiser at least for now for the PTE to give free travel to school children (inc before 9:30) considering this would significantly discourage greedy 4x4 parents from doing the 'school-run', take more cars off the road and give a group of people who aren't even allowed to have a car if they wanted to (kids) to get around more easily.

[Isaac Newell]

It wouldn't make any difference, parents take their kids to school because they don't want them to mix with other kids. I see it in here in London, the black kids and poorer white kids go by bus like they have always done whilst the richer kids go to their supposedly non selective RC and CE schools or those non selective comprehensives in the catchment areas where the houses are £100,000 more than the average for the borough.

[Cherguevara]

Originally Posted by spacepostman

I think it's ludicrous pensioners get free travel after 9:30 when the rest of us pay over the odds for it. My monthly system one bus/train pass is £81, it's gone up by about 8% this year and now I know why.

Postman - I would say the implication of this comment is that while 'the rest of us' are paying current prices for public transport then it is ludicrous (absurd, unsustainable, untenable) that we continue to extend to pensioners the public transport rights they are currently given. I.e. we should withdraw them until non-pensioners costs come down. Whether that is your belief that is how it reads.

With regards to the school run I imagine the congestion charge will be a better bet at limiting it than subsidies for the reasons Isaac outlined. Those that drive don't need the subsidy, they need a kick up the arse.

[The Longford]

Originally Posted by Isaac Newell

It wouldn't make any difference, parents take their kids to school because they don't want them to mix with other kids. I see it in here in London, the black kids and poorer white kids go by bus like they have always done whilst the richer kids go to their supposedly non selective RC and CE schools or those non selective comprehensives in the catchment areas where the houses are £100,000 more than the average for the borough.

There is an element of this without a doubt - see the traffic outside Mcr Grammar/High as apposed to say Trinity - but my daughter goes to a school in a scummy part of Burnage and it seems that all classes and races drive their little angels to school. Only stupid liberal softies like me get up at daft a clock in the pissing rain and leave my lovely car at home to walk two kids to school.

[Vince Noir]

Published on Wednesday, 21 March 2007

Transport bosses have announced plans to improve travel and reduce congestion around Owens Park in Fallowfield - on the busiest bus and cycle route in the North West.

The bus stops opposite the Owens Park Halls of Residence on Wilmslow Road serve up to 6,000 passengers a day on 14 different services.

Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Authority and Manchester City Council are now taking forward a scheme to help buses and other traffic flow more easily and improve safety for all road users and pedestrians.

The work will include new bus stops and shelters and more room for buses to pull up. Pedestrian crossings will be improved and there will be extensive improvements for cyclists, with a cycle route provided in both directions.

Manchester Council are also seeking a Traffic Regulation Condition to establish some basic rules of operation that all bus operators must observe to ensure public safety. This would limit the waiting time for buses and prevent the congestion caused by buses at peak times.

Councillor Andrew Fender, GMPTA spokesperson for Manchester said: "During the morning peak the buses in this area are packed full and there can be nine or ten vehicles backed up along the road waiting for passengers. This is causing delays for bus passengers, other road users and problems for local businesses.

"We are now stepping in to do something about it and these improvements will make a real difference. They will make it easier and safer for people to use buses to and from the area, and reduce congestion for the benefit of all road users."

25,000 information leaflets have been printed and will be distributed to students, local residents and businesses this week. The improvement works are set to start in the spring. The bulk of the work will take place from June to October while the majority of students are away to minimise disruption to bus passengers in the area.

http://www.gmpte.com/news.cfm?news_id=5178117

[Gavin]

Although only just published, most of this work has already happened. The design isn't bad. Better than before anyway.

[markydeedrop]

The clocktower on the building behind the interchange looks a little unfinished to me. Like they ran out of money before they could complete the top.