In their own words the arguments for and against setting up a Transport Authority for Bristol:
1) For – Greater Bristol Transport Alliance
Transport for Greater Bristol Alliance
On behalf of the Transport Alliance for Greater Bristol, I urge you to investigate the possibility of setting up an Integrated Transport Authority.
* The Local Transport Act (2008) offers an opportunity through an ITA to effect control of local passenger transport, including bus and rail, whilst retaining highway powers,where this city region is renowned nationally for failing to provide what is required to reduce reliance on the car and reduce carbon emissions from road transport
* We recognise that the LTA (2008) makes no provision to fund the establishment of an ITA . However, with the application of some imaginative thinking, the costs of a review of governance and indeed the inauguration of an ITA could be found through seconding transport staff from those councils that are interested. Further, approaches could be made to local MPs, most of whom support an ITA, for ongoing funding from central government who after all have the authority to impose an ITA if necessary. Elsewhere the PTA’s and ITA’s have a proven track record of their funding applications being well received by central government.
* The initial small sum of £10,000 followed by £90,000, for funding a review of governance, suggested in the WEP officers’ report to the last meeting of the JTEC in October, would be money well spent and could lead to much needed public transport improvements which would make this region attractive to commercial investment, particularly in this period of recession.
* The bus operators, the transport campaign groups, the environment campaigners, local MPs and one of your councils support an ITA. If this opportunity is missed due to the old adage ‘ but we are doing alright ‘, then it is not difficult to predict the continued demise of public transport and the consequential increase in traffic congestion where road building is now proved as no solution.
The complacency recently displayed by the WEP over many transport issues flies in the face of public opinion where we have a transport system widely described as “rubbish”, as an absurdity, an insult to the passengers and not fit for purpose.
This is borne out by the statistics for our region:
a) It has the slowest-moving urban traffic;
b) It has the highest rail fares;
c) The average age of the passenger rail fleet is greater than that in any other region and much of the rail infrastructure is life expired;
d) People have worse access to buses than in any other part of Great Britain.
e) Greater use of cars is made in the region than elsewhere.
We expect better of you, on the issue of public transport which is the key to a sustainable economic future in the region.
Can you please make that decision today and confirm by public statement whether or not you support a ‘review of governance’. The public have a right to know where the WEP now stand on the question of an ITA.
And assuming that you choose to do nothing and continue to preside over these dysfunctional arrangements… be of no doubt: that in the very near future, faced with the transport problems that will unfold here , you or your successors will be implementing an ITA or its future equivalent, if you wish to maintain the economic well-being of the region and its citizens. We ask you to have the vision to start that process now rather than waiting while things continue to get worse.
Martin Garrett – Transport for Greater Bristol Alliance
2) Against -Cllr Elfan Ap Rees (Con) Deputy Leader North Somerset Council
Unfortunately people have been misled by the hype.
There is no sense in Councils trying to run trains and buses .We would have to buy in the expertise and the subsidies that would be required would be enormous. As there would be no additional government help there would actually be no benefit above the arrangements the West Of England Partnership already has agreed with partners such as the Highways Agency, First Bus, Network Rail and the DfT.
In fact all that would be achieved is yet another quango and layer of bureaucracy ,and large increases in your council tax.
And by the way through working with First we have actually got the key bus service through Yatton and Claverham reinstated, We are also buying land at present to extend the car park at Nailsea and Backwell Station, again with the aid of government funding and without having to pay an ITA to do it for us.
I hope that clarifies the facts for you.
Cllr Elfan Ap Rees
Deputy Leader
Councillor Ap Rees misses the big picture and doesn’t focus on how an ITA can give us a joined up transport system across the region. As usual the outlying authorities take a parochial “I’m alright Jack” attitude.
The fact that the most noteworthy achievements of North Somerset Council are buying some land for a car park and saving a bus service says it all.
This failure is the latest in a long series of political missed opportunituies.
The result of them all is that Bristol and the surrounding area remains gridlocked; CO2 emissions remain high and, in the longer term, the city risks becoming a business backwater.
Paul, please will you itemise what can be done now both at a Council level and by ordinary citizens who are fed up with this institutional inertia?
How patronising of Cllr Elfan Ap Rees, putting people’s disappointment with not getting to go-ahead for a single transport authority down to the fact that we’ve “believed the hype”. I can tell him that it’s certainly not ‘hype’ when the 332 from Bath to Bristol is routinely 40 mins+ late almost daily. It’s not ‘hype’ when you can’t get a seat on the 319 Bath to Cribbs Causeway because 80% of the passengers are over 65s who don’t pay. It’s not ‘hype’ when First Bus reduce a whole swathe of services across Bristol, Bath and West Wiltshire because, supposedly, fewer people are traveling. It’s not ‘hype’ when one of the expensive Showcase’ bus routes from Bristol through St George and Hanham isn’t enforced, isn’t monitored and motorists continue to use and park with abandon in the bus lane, meaning that all it’s become is a waste of paint. It isn’t ‘hype’ when First Bus charge some of the highest bus fares in the country across Avon, but still manage to run a fleet without driver-controlled heating and many buses without single seating and low floors. That’s my life as a public transport user in the Bristol & Bath area…but perhaps I’m dreaming all those things…must be the hype!