Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising

[CUL 73V]

RE: Liverpool City Region Bus Franchising

(27/06/2023 12:44)Barney Wrote:  In what way was I patronising you? I merely pointed out to you that I have a different life experience.

I totally agree with you that the Connectivity Plan has been a disaster but wasn't this conceived and implemented by Liverpool City Council under the direction of the former leader, Joe Anderson, who was clearly anti-bus? Personally, I think the creation of the various cycle lanes in the city centre at the expense of road space and bus lanes is totally flawed as the only cyclists I ever see using them are those delivering pizzas and other types of fast food. From memory, I think that the councillor responsible for devising the Connectivity Plan resigned his post several years ago when it was obvious that it was going to be a failure.

Also, it is an open secret that there is/was no love lost between Anderson and Rotherham as they have/had very different visions for how public transport should operate within the LCR.

Merseytravel's role, which to some extent it did do, was to liaise with Arriva and Stagecoach to mitigate the impact of these radical changes and it certainly wasn't responsible for devising or proposing the Connectivity Plan.

I'm 28 years old, I don't need to be told how taxation works or how local authority funding is provided.

Merseytravel went along with LCC's "improvements", so they are equally responsible for the fact it is now much harder to get to Liverpool One and the waterfront by bus if you live in the north of Liverpool. If there was any critical thinking within Merseytravel at the time, they'd have realised the problem wasn't the number of buses in the core of the city centre, but a lack of effective bus lanes and advised LCC this was the case. The problems with bus provision in this city are not the fault of the operators as Rotheram tries to make us believe, but the local authorities who couldn't be any more anti bus and sub standard if they tried.

There is not one authority or politician in this city region up to the standard required. I very much doubt this will ever change, because the city and LCR will continue to elect the same officials who don't care and haven't got a clue how to run a bus network between them.