Should The Public Take Back Control Of Buses In Our Region?

[Bilge 34]

If you have any comments on how we organise public transport in future in our region (or anything else you want to say)  you can email our mayor Dan Jarvis here:

enquiries@sheffieldcityregion.org.uk

"WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU" they say.

https://sheffieldcityregion.org.uk/contact/

[Guest busdriver1]

12 hours ago, Centrepin said:

Before deregulation the only 20 year old buses were in the museum at Tinsley.  Fact, not hearsay, go look it up.

 

Again hearsay, people you say that worked on them, utter rubbish. You don't know, you're repeating rumours from people who probably heard it from someone else who heard it from someone else. 

 

I remember not being able to breathe for cigarette smoke upstairs and downstairs on the full standing load buses passing the colliery around shift change time. BTW that's a memory direct from me, not what I heard from a friend who might or might not have seen one pass at a distance from his bedroom window before he got up for school.

Well done for totally missing my point. Well done. I have stated quite clearly that I was not living in the area at the time. I also stated that I witnessed and I will here add WORKED on those vehicles in my professional capacity as a PSV engineer. Not exactly hearsay? I likened them to 20 year old buses as we ran a few then, the difference being ours were better maintained hence they lasted to 20 years. On one of the occasions that the ministry put a load of SHEFFIELD buses off the road, we loaned some to SYPTE and took several of their crocks in to fix. It was no small task, the neglect was obvious to see. The bill from our company alone was astronomical because of the work needed.

 

If you like I will itemise the defects on just one vehicle and the reasons they got like that. I have worked on maybe thousands of vehicles but those ones stay in my mind purely because of the state they were in at such a young age. ( the main one I did was just under 2 years old).

 

I also remember colliery buses in my part of the world. yes other places had them. Funnily enough they were crammed as well but at higher fares. It was a different world then. And yes, I SAW THEM.

12 hours ago, Centrepin said:

Before deregulation the only 20 year old buses were in the museum at Tinsley.  Fact, not hearsay, go look it up.

I did and guess what? 

There was no museum at Tinsley then.

[catmiss 12]

On 05/11/2019 at 17:03, lottiecass said:

No, I don't see why folk who do not use buses help pay for council run buses.

There are a lot of services I pay for which I don’t use, education, parks, libraries, fire, police, dog wardens etc. but they are there if I or other need  them. Glad I don’t subscribe to the “I’m alright Jack” mentality above

[Halibut 12]

4 hours ago, catmiss said:

There are a lot of services I pay for which I don’t use, education, parks, libraries, fire, police, dog wardens etc. but they are there if I or other need  them. Glad I don’t subscribe to the “I’m alright Jack” mentality above

'I'm alright Jack' = deeply selfish = probably a Tory.

[willman 10]

Surely the biggest volume users of buses in most towns and cities are pensioners - who if i believe correctly travel free paid from taxation.

 

We're about to lose a bus through our area - although they are rejigging routes so that we are still serviced.

However people want the opportunity to catch a bus every 15 minutes so are moaning about it, yet they don't get off their arses and use them frequently enough to make it economicallyviable.

These are the same people that want to close the leisure centre because its losing money and they don't use it.

 

A leisure centre run into the ground and running at a massive loss funded by council tax by a Labour run parish council for the past 40 years btw.

Edited November 7, 2019 by willman

[the_bloke 17]

20 hours ago, dave_the_m said:

The main reason TfL are facing a big deficit is that the start of Crossrail was suddenly delayed by a year or more, and TfL's budget assumed revenue from that service.

TfL has always been a loss maker. It has never broke even.

[catmiss 12]

15 hours ago, willman said:

Surely the biggest volume users of buses in most towns and cities are pensioners - who if i believe correctly travel free paid from taxation.

 

We're about to lose a bus through our area - although they are rejigging routes so that we are still serviced.

However people want the opportunity to catch a bus every 15 minutes so are moaning about it, yet they don't get off their arses and use them frequently enough to make it economicallyviable.

These are the same people that want to close the leisure centre because its losing money and they don't use it.

 

A leisure centre run into the ground and running at a massive loss funded by council tax by a Labour run parish council for the past 40 years btw.

I take it you are a car driver otherwise you’d be aware of the number of people using busses and trams to get to work, university, college etc. Given the city centre parking issues of supply and cost a lot of drivers park their cars free in residential areas such as mine and then use public transport to complete their journey into the city centre. All public services are paid from local or national taxation- are you suggesting that the majority should not contribute to services used by a minority? 

[Pettytom 1]

15 hours ago, the_bloke said:

TfL has always been a loss maker. It has never broke even.

That’s fine.

 

It transports people around London in huge numbers, at a reasonable cost, and with minimal pollution 

 

Sometimes, there are more important things than profit and loss 

[Annie Bynnol 612]

8 hours ago, Pettytom said:

That’s fine.

 

It transports people around London in huge numbers, at a reasonable cost, and with minimal pollution 

 

Sometimes, there are more important things than profit and loss 

I object to paying the £ billion subsidies paid by us to enable free or subsidised travel just for London citizens, the cost of new railways trains and stations for the benefit of the even more commuters.

 

Examples include:

We pay for their unlimited over 60 and under 18s free travel.

We are paying for the political bus policy of Boris Johnson which is costing us £722 million pounds a year.

We are paying millions parking  dozens of brand new never used London trains in Worksop.

Year after year pay and infrastructure costs are "hidden" by transferring losses to the national debt via Network Rail.

 

 

 

[the_bloke 17]

12 hours ago, Pettytom said:

That’s fine.

 

It transports people around London in huge numbers, at a reasonable cost, and with minimal pollution 

 

Sometimes, there are more important things than profit and loss 

As a taxpayer, I'd like my taxes to be spent efficiently rather than wasted, that's not hard to ask is it? Or do you think that an operating deficit of almost a billion pounds is 'fine'?

[Pettytom 1]

19 minutes ago, the_bloke said:

As a taxpayer, I'd like my taxes to be spent efficiently rather than wasted, that's not hard to ask is it? Or do you think that an operating deficit of almost a billion pounds is 'fine'?

That rather depends upon what you get for your billion quid.

 

If you get efficient movement of people around our capital city, it might well be fine. Consider the boost to commerce and tourism that this will bring. Add in the reduction in pollution that goes hand in hand with efficient public transport and youve probably got money well spent.

[the_bloke 17]

7 minutes ago, Pettytom said:

That rather depends upon what you get for your billion quid.

 

If you get efficient movement of people around our capital city, it might well be fine. Consider the boost to commerce and tourism that this will bring. Add in the reduction in pollution that goes hand in hand with efficient public transport and youve probably got money well spent.

None of those things are unique to the fact transport in London is nationalised though. Would you feel the same if a private company or companies provided the same level of service in London as currently but `only` took £100m a year in government subsidies?