Glasgow City Council recently launched their transport strategy consultation. It sounds dull, but it’s really important for our campaign.
This strategy will determine everything the Council does on transport over the next few years. The survey has some huge, glaring gaps which we all need to fix.
While the survey shows the Council have some good ideas for making it easier and safer to walk and cycle, and reducing the dominance of the car in and around Glasgow, there is no sign of the huge changes we need to our public transport. The changes Get Glasgow Moving has been campaigning for the last four years.
There is no mention of publicly-owned buses, or using the new ‘franchising’ powers in the 2019 Transport Act to regulate bus companies to deliver an integrated and affordable network. This is what cities like Manchester and Liverpool plan to do to put passengers first.
The narrow scope of the survey questions suggests the Council are planning more of the same for our bus network – allowing private operators to cut routes, hike fares, whilst passenger numbers continue to decline. We cannot allow this to happen!
Please take the survey and use all the open questions to submit your vision.
We need genuinely radical ideas. We need a comprehensive transport network. Below are some suggestions, which you could use or adapt. It’s vital that as many of us as possible push the council on issues of ownership and regulation of our buses.
“Many people still need a car to access the city centre because they live beyond walking and cycling distance and the bus service is inadequate, expensive and unreliable. Glasgow City Council should use the powers in the 2019 Transport Act and work with neighbouring local authorities to set up a publicly-owned bus company for Greater Glasgow. Like Edinburgh’s Lothian Buses, this company would reinvest profits in improving the fleet and expanding the network to reach all corners of the region”.
“Public transport should be free in Glasgow, like it is in other towns and cities around the world such as Tallinn in Estonia and Kansas in the US. Car use should be discouraged, and it should be free and easy to get about using public transport, walking and cycling”.
“Glasgow needs a public bus operator, like Edinburgh’s Lothian Buses. First and McGill’s have failed this city”.
“We can’t have a transport strategy for Glasgow that doesn’t include major reform of our buses. The private companies have failed passengers and communities. Glasgow’s transport strategy must include options for a public operator, and re-regulation”.