Latest City centre shopper numbers – Lendal Bridge trial could go on and on and on

 

The Council has issued the latest City centre footfall figures.

The figures show more people visited Parliament Street during December and January this winter than in the equivalent period 12 months ago.

increase-footfall-retail

However compared to 2012, numbers are down by 9%.

The decline in shopper numbers is likely to have been influenced by the Councils decision to impose substantial car parking charge increases.

It appears that the “free” car parking day on Saturday did not produce the hoped for increases in footfall.

The numbers monitored on Saturday (1st Feb 2014) was 31,974 compared to the busiest Saturdays in the two previous years when 37,137 (2nd Feb 13) and 40,951 (28th Jan 12) people respectively were recorded on Parliament Street.

The full figures can be found here.

Meanwhile the Council leaflet, issued to residents, which talked about “Reinvigorating York” has been branded as misleading.

Bus service reliability in York – FOI response

Apparently the York Council has not asked bus companies to reveal service reliability stats.

bus-stop1

Despite claims to the contrary, a Freedom of Information request has revealed that the York Council has not apparently asked local bus operators to publish service reliability statistics.

The claims were made by politicians in 2012 as they tried to justify only publishing an annual reliability figure (which later turned out to be a one day sample).

The annual figure published on the DpT web site suggests that 1 in 5 buses in York are more than 5 minutes late.

In 2013, the Council claimed that a data sharing agreement (which has now been published) prevented them from revealing figures which would tell passengers what reliability levels were being achieved.

Rail users have had access to such information for over a decade.

More recently the Council has admitted that it does get these figures on a regular basis but aggregation would have to be done “manually” and to do so would be prohibitively expensive.

The Council claims that its data is supplied through a system supplied by Vix Acis.

This company publicly claims that their Horizon web based system does provide “management with the ability to mine historical data for service improvement and reporting against key performance indicators”.

So the suspicion remains that, for some reason, both the bus companies and the Council are desperate to hide just how reliable bus services in the City actually are.

Our view is that (at least) each month the number of buses running on time (within 5 minutes of the published timetable) on each route should be published on the web.

Pensioners face fares increase in York

The Council are imposing a 14% increase in fares for pensioner pass holders who use Park and Ride services.

Other passengers also face a 10p per journey increase.

The new fares, which will be introduced on 5th January, are as follows

Product Fare Buy from Format
Standard Return £2.60 (£2.70 from 5th Jan) Bus Driver Paper ticket
MinsterCard Return £2.30 (£2.40 from 5th Jan) Site Office Stored Value Smartcard
Concessionary Return 70p (80p from 5th Jan) Bus Driver Paper ticket
Weekly
MinsterCard		 £10.40 (£10.80 from 5th Jan) Site Office 1 Week Smartcard
Monthly
MinsterCard		 £41.60 (£43.20 from 5th Jan) Site Office 1 Month Smartcard
Annual
MinsterCard		 £416 (£432 from 5th Jan) Site Office 1 Year Smartcard

The York council claimed before Christmas that there had been an increase in bus usage since the summer and put it down to reduced bus fares.

http://www.itravelyork.info/park-and-ride/fares-and-passes

Bus bureaucracy set to increase in York – meetings still behind closed doors

Bus delays

Minutes of the last meeting between the Council and bus operators reveal how decisions on the service may be taken in the future.

It looks like a 3 tier system of committees will be put in place.

Behind closed doors logo

There is no commitment to the meeting being open to the public. What information potential bus passenger will get remains unclear

The plans seem to rest heavily on York being designated as a “Better Bus Area”.

If it were then the coalition government would delegate some funding to a joint committee.

Meanwhile the Council is still refusing to release details of the reliability being achieved on bus services in York

Late shoppers Park and Ride services tomorrow (Thursday)

Park and ride buses

Extended Park&Ride (P&R) services on Thursdays and free Boxing Day P&R travel.

A late night shoppers service will operate on all five Park&Ride routes every Thursday, with the last bus leaving the city centre on all routes at around 9.30pm (for exact timings visit http://www.itravelyork.info/).

The first extended service will run from the 28 November to coincide with the biggest Christmas market in York’s calendar – St Nicholas Fayre.

In addition to this, passengers will also be able to take advantage of FREE travel on Boxing Day on the three key P&R routes which will be operating.

Three Park & Ride services will operate on Boxing Day:

◦Askham Bar (white line – route 3) – First bus at 7am from the site, last bus back from Tower Street at 6.45pm

◦Designer Outlet (red line – route 7) – First bus at 7am from the site, last bus back from Rougier Street at 6.42pm

◦Monks Cross (silver line – route 9) – First bus at 7am from the site, last bus back from Rougier Street at 6.43pm

All three services will operate at a 15 minute frequency throughout the day and will be FREE for all passengers (and will stop at all usual stops along the route).

Lendal Bridge/Coppergate update published. Number fined tops 35,000!

Stand and deliver Labour revive traditional transport funding in York

Stand and deliver
Labour revive traditional transport funding in York

25,911 motorists attracted penalty charge notices for using Lendal Bridge since ANPR cameras were switched on to enforce restrictions at the beginning of September.

On Coppergate, a total of 9122 drivers have now been penalised.

Together that means that 35,033 drivers have been told to cough up £60 each.

That is the equivalent of over £2 million in fines income.

Of course, the amount actually received by the Council will be less than half that figure as many will pay early to get a £30 discount, while others will successfully challenge the fine.

It is still a damming indictment of the adequacy of the signage used to advertise the restrictions.

Fines levied by week. Click to enlarge

Fines levied by week. Click to enlarge

The figures are admitted in the Councils latest update report on the effects of the new traffic restrictions.

The report is otherwise remarkable for what it hides rather than what it reveals.

There are no footfall (shopper) statistics included, accident and air quality figures are missing, only the effects of the closure on park and ride bus services are reported (journey times up in October) while the normal stage carriage services (which have been hit by increased traffic congestion in other parts of the City) are omitted.

No information on journey times for drivers is provided.

The Council only admits that traffic volumes on Foss Islands Road and Clifton Bridge are up on the same period last year.

The report, such as it is, can be read by clicking here.

“Traffic congestion in York getting worse” – residents. Costs put at £491 per household

Congestion cartoon 2

Every respondent, to the survey that we are undertaking in parts of the Hob Moor and Dringhouses areas, has so far said that traffic congestion in York has got worse in recent months.

Delays of the type experienced during the “rush hours” have now become commonplace at other times of the day.

The sudden deterioration has been put down to a series of factors.

The decision to close Lendal Bridge to private traffic, while at the same time undertaking extensive road works on the A1237 northern by pass, is blamed by many.

Unreliable traffic signals, burst water mains and a population less willing to use bus services, have added to the problems.

The Council’s ridiculously titled campaign to “Get York Moving” lies in tatters with a report to a Cabinet meeting earlier in the month lacking any information on traffic volumes or congestion delays.

Nationally according to a recent report, close to £426m is being wasted on fuel alone due to traffic hold ups, which means each of the 8.2 million commuting drivers in the country have to bear a fuel cost of £52.

INRIX, an international provider of traffic information and intelligent driver services, together with Cebr, has revealed that congestion on roads costs around £491 per car-commuting household.

The other direct cost is wastage of time, with the average cost of time wasted in gridlock per traveller £331, which results in a total national time cost of £2.7bn.

Bus use in York down by 10% last year

Bus use click to enlarge

Bus use click to enlarge

Over a million fewer journeys were made by bus last year in York.

This is equivalent to a 10% reduction in “stage carriage” service use. The figures are described as “provisional”.

The Council has yet to respond fully to a Freedom of Information request on bus usage in the City.

Requests for the City to publish bus reliability information are also mired in a legal wrangle.

Although Park and Ride use increased from 4.1 to 4.3 million trips, it did not offset what is the largest single year decline ever recorded in public transport use in the City.

The start of the decline can be traced back to 2011 when the Council confronted the major provider of services in the City (First) in an attempt to get the futuristic ftr taken off York’s roads.

The ftr had been popular with passengers but the dispute led to a period of conflict between the Council and bus operators.

Recent attempts to “hype” a fares reduction through the media proved to be ill judged as many users found that their journey was actually coasting more.

The Council announced at its last meeting that it is scrapping the Quality Bus Partnership which has been a liaison point between bus operators, passenger representatives and the Council.

It will be replaced by another”behind closed doors” discussion group

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NB. Following on from the bad news about reduced footfall in the City, the Council report has also revealed a drop in car park use from 1.62 to 1.52 million.

They are forecasting a net shortfall of £250k (3.5%) from parking income following data from the first six months.

The decline in use followed a decision by the new Labour Council to implement a 36% increase in parking charges.

Tadcaster Road/Slingsby Grove Bus Stop Improvements

Tadcaster Road bus stop proposed changes click to enlarge

Tadcaster Road bus stop proposed changes click to enlarge

The Council is consulting on proposed “improvements” to the bus stop adjacent to No.80 Tadcaster Road.

The proposal is to construct a build-out to the existing footpath at the existing bus stop.

The existing bus stop area of the layby is then marked out and protected by traffic order as a loading bay.

There have been complaints from drivers leaving Slingsby Grove that sight lines to the left are blocked by (illegally) parked vans.

Any representations should be made by Email to mark.reade@york.gov.uk by Friday 15th November 2013