First Manchester

[gilesbus1]

RE: First Manchester

(14/02/2019 03:00)Brickmill Wrote:  Potential growth market? Who in their right mind is going to spend a fortune on buying, taxing and insurance a car and then spend ING £4.80 bus fare instead of as little as 84p petrol and free parking (in most suburbs). Or if they are committing, taking twice the time or more to get to/from work?
And then you say an individual doesn't care about buses because he travels by car... Notwithstanding his recent piece in the MEN emphasising the importance of buses. Due to the sheer numbers of people depending on them, at worst Mr Burnham is nowhere near the users biggest political enemy. As for TFGM bus timetables, they run on a strictly impartial system to stop Operators giving the impression that they are the only Operator on a route. Their blandness is based on budget concerns and who knows if Operators didn't change nearly every service at least twice a year, because they are incapable of analysing a whole route at once, the extra staff time created combined with the positive effects of a stable network would create an opportunity to make.

Well if you don't want to promote a product then it deserves to fail, and it will fail, all I see is cuts continuing or buses being operated at a loss, if you believe the public system was better how come every year Greater Manchester Transport directly controlled buses it made a massive loss and passengers deserted it in there droves and switched to private cars? How come there were more strikes than i've had hot dinners at least one all out strike a year - did passengers not suffer then Phil???? the same passengers you claim to support, then yes there was no customer service drivers were rude and ignorant in many cases, swearing on vehicles was wide spread amongst staff - Do you really want to go back to that. Then there was wasting money by scrapping buses that had a 20 year life span after 12 years or in the case of the two Foden NC's after about 6 years rather than selling them on on the second hand market, the there was the bus garages they built in the 1970's/1980's all of which are now closed and mostly demolished because they were dumb enough not to realise flat roofs don't work, but no worry you were only wasting tax payers money not your own. Thats why it can't ever go back to that.

TfGM have always been bitter because they lost control, and at every step of the way they've done little to help the private bus market except to hinder operators investment plans with poor decision making that seems to take years to do, if TfGM are that sure they want this well why don't they do it tomorrow not after another consultation yet again while all the time bus passengers are suffering because operators are unable to make business plans and invest in fleets so much so at least two of them are in discussions to sell there Greater Manchester business's. Well there will be no happy ending as its band B houses that have to pay the extra tax some of the people you say you want to help with this, TfGM don't tell the full truth and spin the issue to get there own way and with the lack of marketing tools things won't change. Also opportunities are missed like the option to bid for Hydrogen Buses all things that could make a positive difference and get publicity are just missed and thrown away. Go back to the fleet colour of a 1960's living room if you want its not very appealing.

[gilesbus1]

RE: First Manchester
Who in their right mind is going to spend a fortune on buying, taxing and insurance a car and then spend ING £4.80 bus fare instead of as little as 84p petrol and free parking (in most suburbs). Or if they are committing, taking twice the time or more to get to/from work? - Phil

Shows when you last used a car, car parking in Manchester City Centre is often £10 and upwards aday and there is no where you can park in the City Centre for under £2.50. Fuel a few pence, no its much more expensive than that, £30 might last a week for someone who does 20 miles aday return journey, so in my mind its all to play for, but TfGM want to run a service for people who are poor only lets remember that????

[Brickmill]

RE: First Manchester

(14/02/2019 05:59)gilesbus1 Wrote:  Who in their right mind is going to spend a fortune on buying, taxing and insurance a car and then spend ING £4.80 bus fare instead of as little as 84p petrol and free parking (in most suburbs). Or if they are committing, taking twice the time or more to get to/from work? - Phil

Shows when you last used a car, car parking in Manchester City Centre is often £10 and upwards aday and there is no where you can park in the City Centre for under £2.50. Fuel a few pence, no its much more expensive than that, £30 might last a week for someone who does 20 miles aday return journey, so in my mind its all to play for, but TfGM want to run a service for people who are poor only lets remember that????

I have never run a car and I distinctly said suburbs not regional centre. Where I live the council provide 38 paid for parking and the other 1500 or so are provided completely free by Sainsbury's, Morrisons, Lidl. and a large but struggling edge of town Retail park. As for you paying £1.50 a mile in fuel, even the powerful motoring lobby quote figures below 20p. As for your thinly veiled attack on the poor, I'm not going to waste my phone battery on a personal response. But to illustrate the wider picture I would just say this: THEIR IS NO H IN TAMESIDE.

[Brickmill]

RE: First Manchester

(14/02/2019 05:49)gilesbus1 Wrote:  Well if you don't want to promote a product then it deserves to fail, and it will fail, all I see is cuts continuing or buses being operated at a loss, if you believe the public system was better how come every year Greater Manchester Transport directly controlled buses it made a massive loss and passengers deserted it in there droves and switched to private cars? How come there were more strikes than i've had hot dinners at least one all out strike a year - did passengers not suffer then Phil???? the same passengers you claim to support, then yes there was no customer service drivers were rude and ignorant in many cases, swearing on vehicles was wide spread amongst staff - Do you really want to go back to that. Then there was wasting money by scrapping buses that had a 20 year life span after 12 years or in the case of the two Foden NC's after about 6 years rather than selling them on on the second hand market, the there was the bus garages they built in the 1970's/1980's all of which are now closed and mostly demolished because they were dumb enough not to realise flat roofs don't work, but no worry you were only wasting tax payers money not your own. Thats why it can't ever go back to that.

TfGM have always been bitter because they lost control, and at every step of the way they've done little to help the private bus market except to hinder operators investment plans with poor decision making that seems to take years to do, if TfGM are that sure they want this well why don't they do it tomorrow not after another consultation yet again while all the time bus passengers are suffering because operators are unable to make business plans and invest in fleets so much so at least two of them are in discussions to sell there Greater Manchester business's. Well there will be no happy ending as its band B houses that have to pay the extra tax some of the people you say you want to help with this, TfGM don't tell the full truth and spin the issue to get there own way and with the lack of marketing tools things won't change. Also opportunities are missed like the option to bid for Hydrogen Buses all things that could make a positive difference and get publicity are just missed and thrown away. Go back to the fleet colour of a 1960's living room if you want its not very appealing.

Can I make a suggestion; Go away and learn the basic difference between who has/had "control" of buses and who carries out the resulting policies; then research how many actual disputes both before and after D-reg; then learn about the Global Economic crises of the 70s with particular emphasis on the Arab wars and ensuing Oil crises and resulting hyper inflation - and make sure you take Gary Nolan on that lesson. Oh and as for refusing the taxpayer and bus users a say because you've decided adecision has already been made that just sums up British shamacrocy.

[gilesbus1]

RE: First Manchester

(14/02/2019 09:15)Brickmill Wrote:  Can I make a suggestion; Go away and learn the basic difference between who has/had "control" of buses and who carries out the resulting policies; then research how many actual disputes both before and after D-reg; then learn about the Global Economic crises of the 70s with particular emphasis on the Arab wars and ensuing Oil crises and resulting hyper inflation - and make sure you take Gary Nolan on that lesson. Oh and as for refusing the taxpayer and bus users a say because you've decided adecision has already been made that just sums up British shamacrocy.

Yes thats just the problem isn't it TfGM have already made the decision two or three years ago, and will decide through committees of left wing bus passengers like yourself what goes through, me things re-reg happens, i've nothing against that but I don't see it increasing bus usership I see it continuing to slide.

I will admit though not every decision TfGM have made was bad the successful Vantage Busway we now have is one example from a TfGM manager also giving it, its own livery all made sense so I will give you that ground, but to make that happen on a wider scale is a tall ask which I doubt TfGM will be able to do.

There is a need to attract potential growth beyond existing passengers if its to have any success chance but you seen not to believe that, you seem to thing the growth will come from within existing passengers when they are actually on the decline, how to TfGM intend to advertise a new system and whats available? What extra routes will there be? What will survive, and what will get scrapped? I appreciate you might no have the answer yourself as your just one individual in it, but with seemingly no expertise on skills such as marketing I can't see how TfGM can expect the market to grow, lets not forget bus stations can be antisocial places at times in certain places and also the fact bus station offices have already closed at the time the vast majority leave work, timetables need to be available more widely as does service information, and a bus station isn't a place for cycle maps that seem to use all the colour you claim TfGM can't afford, that are useless, how can a fold up cycle map be used on a cycle, effectively they are a useless product that has had money wasted on them and then displayed in the wrong place.

Has the money for those come from some sort of grant???? as it is irritating a lot of people that we've had to wait nearly five years without a bus map but yet a cycle map seems to be updated every year, and no one seems to take them from bus stations???? Its just a shame that money wasn't put to better use on bus maps or bus guides.

I will give some more positives now of recent TfGM activity, bus stations build recently in places like Bolton, Rochdale and Wigan are a major improvement on there predecessors and hopefully that program can be roled through to improve others similarly, and as i've said before I don't condone the behaviour of operators like First it leaves a lot to be desired, but things could be better still. TfGM can attract car drivers in the case of Vantage but that idea needs to be rolled out more wide spread and yes I am giving you some ground here.

But to assume buses are just for the poorest 10% is exactly what some people's reason is for not using them, things can't continue like that there needs to be a reversal of the situation as it stands or might stand without a move away from that ideology to a wider ideology the one Shillibear used Omnibus means "for all"
e.g available for everybody. TfL isn't a shining example of success its an example of waste of the public purse, dictated by each politician that has been there having their own political agenda's and money has been wasted on vehicles that didn't need to be on two occasions within that period. Yes I scorned Boris for the waste of money on New Routemasters and the chucking out of the Bendy-buses. Manchester will not get the London budget so its more important that things are right. We don't want a carbon copy of what was there in the 1970's as it was far from perfect.

There is a major need to invest in further bus lanes and a need to decide exactly what network design is wanted and how to market it. Just leaving leaflets in a bus station doesn't work unfortunately, I know modern technology has its part to play in terms of the Internet and the Telephone but not everyone has access to those.

There is also the need to develop routes to serve people's modern life styles, town centres are no longer what they were, people may not use the bus for that any longer but yet routes always terminate in the town centres of towns, the need is to serve places were people work on large business parks and industrial parks, to have cross town routes so people can connect without needing to change buses. Also some loss making routes might be saved by linking them to Metrolink Stations or terminals so people can change to the much faster Metro with through fares, and yes I will give you the fact private companies can't do that and TfGM can, so do it????

[Brickmill]

RE: First Manchester

(14/02/2019 20:21)gilesbus1 Wrote:  Yes thats just the problem isn't it TfGM have already made the decision two or three years ago, and will decide through committees of left wing bus passengers like yourself what goes through, me things re-reg happens, i've nothing against that but I don't see it increasing bus usership I see it continuing to slide.

As you have clearly NOT the faintest idea of what TFGM is, or what it does and you are resorting to political point scoring, there is no point in continuing through your reply. Indeed, I spent ages compiling a PM to you this afternoon, because this is drifting off topic - mainly because it is now 2019, not 2014 - and your comments were becoming more and more fantasist conjecture. Now you are saying a body with NO powers - TFGM purely carries out the policies of GMCA, just like GMPTE did for GMPTA up until a decade ago - decided how it was going to use these powers in a new piece of legislation *before* it too existed!
FTR, I am happy to be described as "left wing" because the 2019 definition of "left wing" equates to the 1979 definition of "middle of the road, political moderate".

[gilesbus1]

RE: First Manchester

(14/02/2019 20:45)Brickmill Wrote:  As you have clearly NOT the faintest idea of what TFGM is, or what it does and you are resorting to political point scoring, there is no point in continuing through your reply. Indeed, I spent ages compiling a PM to you this afternoon, because this is drifting off topic - mainly because it is now 2019, not 2014 - and your comments were becoming more and more fantasist conjecture. Now you are saying a body with NO powers - TFGM purely carries out the policies of GMCA, just like GMPTE did for GMPTA up until a decade ago - decided how it was going to use these powers in a new piece of legislation *before* it too existed!
FTR, I am happy to be described as "left wing" because the 2019 definition of "left wing" equates to the 1979 definition of "middle of the road, political moderate".

You've actually not read the lower part of the message have you???? I to do think its drifting off topic so we will agree to differ at this point. The bodies you describe are just one carrying out the work of the other they aren't purely separate. I haven't said in any place how its going to to use powers i've suggested we can't go back to the 1970's. I would love to know were the PM went because i've not received it?

[Brickmill]

RE: First Manchester

(14/02/2019 21:00)gilesbus1 Wrote:  You've actually not read the lower part of the message have you???? I to do think its drifting off topic so we will agree to differ at this point. The bodies you describe are just one carrying out the work of the other they aren't purely separate. I haven't said in any place how its going to to use powers i've suggested we can't go back to the 1970's. I would love to know were the PM went because i've not received it?

Yes, that was a waste of 90 minutes. I frankly haven't got time to try again privately, and it is largely irrelevant to the thread, but as you introduced it ON this thread, I will briefly refer to the two main points where our disagreement was starkest:
1. Having worked for GMT/GMB from 1980 & 1993, my memory of Strike action (as against Strike threats or localised disputes) was drastically different to yours. There was one company wide strike during my time with GMT. I can't remember when but it was definately in support of either Ambulance Workers, Nurses or Miners and NOT for GMT drivers own pay or conditions. I also seem to think it was short lived. The other one was in 1988 which was for Drivers pay or conditions (I suspect more likely the latter) as I recall sitting in a van with windows for an hour to make the five mile journey from home to work at Whitelands Road depot.
2. And this one is incredible; your claim that its TFGM (by which you mean GMCA/Andy Burnham, I assume) are stalling on a decision to commit to Franchising, thus blighting Operators investment plans. This is nonsense. it is Whitehall that is refusing to sign off the relevant paperwork. Its also been suggested that Legal Advice has to be sought to cover any and all legal action brought against GMCA for pursuing Franchising. I have absolutely no way of knowing if any of this has happened, but Stagecoach have openly said they will consider legal action to stop Franchising. The word filibuster springs to mind, because they know that for some bizarre reason, the Elected Mayor for GM only has a 3 year tenure where as most others have 4 years.

[buses7675 (Website Founder)]

RE: First Manchester
Can we all get back on topic please everyone, I understand you are passionate about a discussion regarding franchising but perhaps it would be better in a different thread rather than the First Manchester one

Thank you :-)

[bus401]

RE: First Manchester
Here,here