Some park and ride sites to operate free service on Boxing Day

Labour Councillors have announced that they will be considering reducing subsidised bus services in the City at a meeting which will be held on 11^th December.

Labour were criticised during the recent Westfield by election for keeping secret their plans to reduce services like the number 13A which serves the Hamilton Drive area.

There has so far been no consultation on the proposals which will seek to reduce the annual £800,000 spend by the Council on sustaining off peak bus services and those to remoter parts of the City.

The latest crisis reflects problems which started to develop when Labour took control of the Council in 2011.

They concentrated their efforts on scrapping the popular (with passengers) ftr service but failed to put anything in its place. Routes were chopped and changed with stability only achieved during the last 12 moths.

Now even that seems to be under threat.

Bus service usage peaked at 12 million passenger journeys with the introduction of the ftr in 2006 before declining last year to 10.4 million.

Overall bus usage has held up with a gradual increase in the numbers using Park and Ride services which themselves peaked last year at 4.4 million.

Further increases are expected this year with the opening of the larger Askham Bar site and the new service from Poppleton Bar.

NB. The Council has announced it’s Christmas Park and Ride services.

A late night shopping service on all six Park&Ride routes will operate 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 20 November ahead of the biggest Christmas market in York’s calendar – St Nicholas Fair starting on 27 November.

In addition to this, passengers will also be able to take advantage again of the, now traditional, 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 6.42pm
• Designer Outlet (red line – route 7) – First bus at 7am from the site, last bus back from Rougier Street at 6.40pm
• 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).

To find out more about the offer or to find the best bus route through York, try out the council’s new i-Travel York online Journey Planner at http://www.itravelyork.info/

Only a few months after the Council, announced that it was to provide a bus interchange next to the station, it is set to spend £500,000 on upgrading the bus shelters on Rougier Street and Station Rise.

£500,000 bus stop

It will dub them as a “central interchange” showing the plan to demolish Queen Street bridge, and centralise facilities off the main highway, to have been a bit of idle window dressing.

A Council report talks of the “use of lighting and public art to make the facilities generally more attractive, and a better place to spend time waiting for a bus”

Actually what passengers want is the bus to arrive on time plus timely and accurate information about any delays.

Once again it seems that the sub-urban areas are being ignored

In a separate announcement the Council says that it expects to spend over £1.4 million on improvements that will benefit bus services in the “inner” part of York.

The “better bus area” apparently includes part of Acomb and Dringhouses”

Most of the money will come from bus companies but around £400,000 will come from taxpayers.

Some will be spent on new sections of bus lane, traffic signals and kerb lines.

Once again there has been no consultation with passengers, residents or even local ward Councillors.