Manchester Buses

Shut up and stop showing off: plain-speaking bus shelters speak as they find

It isn't the first time that bus shelters have used to plain speaking to get a message across but a hoarding on one shelter on the Crescent in Salford is certainly turning heads for its direct message.

As these photos by Ian Roberts show, Greater Manchester Police are clearly so sick of students giving robbers a helping hand that they're having to resort to telling them to "Just Stop Showing Off!" and "Just Shut Up!".

With one in three students falling victim to crime while at university, it's a worthwhile campaign.  We think it brightens up a bus stop in a rather dull area of Greater Manchester too.  Good work, GMP, you clearly do direct messages better than you do trying to be cool!

 

Labour Party Conference adds to Autumn of disruption

Gordon Brown and chums hit Manchester this weekend to hold their two-week-long annual conference at Manchester Central (formerly G-MEX).  The security cordon around the venue means Labour will be inadvertently adding to the Autumn of Disruption already facing Manchester bus users.

This Is Lancashire reports that the number 3 Metroshutte, the 33 (Manchester - Wigan), 63 (Manchester - Brookhouse), 258 (Manchester - Flixton), X40 (Manchester - Great Harwood), X41 (Manchester - Blackburn) and X43/X44 (Manchester  - Nelson), along with the 8, 17, 39, 67 and 135 night buses have been diverted from today.

From tomorrow the 42A (Manchester - Reddish) 46/47 (Manchester - Southern Cemetery), 50 (Manchester - East Disdbury), 191 (Manchester - Middleton) and 197 (Manchester - Stockport) will also be diverted.  In addition various demonstrations are expected to cause delays and more diversions sporadically over the Conference fortnight.

Interesting, the information isn't on GMPTE's website and has only been reported by This Is Lancashire.

[Image credit: tj.blackwell on Flickr]

Crimefighting on the Buses

One of the main reasons many car drivers won't change over to taking buses is fear of crime.  It's encouraging, then, to hear a couple of stories of how anti-social behaviour is being tackled on Greater Manchester's bus routes.

The Manchester Evening News reports that a bus driver in Manchester took one miscreant to an unexpected terminus - Wythenshawe Police Station.  Spotting an incident on the top deck of the 43 (Manchester - Manchester Airport) service, Stagecoach's very own Batman radioed ahead to arrange cops to board the bus at the police station, off the service's normal route.  It's not quite Dark Knight-league crimefighting, but Stagecoach are famously innovative so you never know, maybe an anti-crime 'Batbus' isn't out of the question.

Meanwhile, The Bolton News reports that GMPTA and the Greater Manchester Bus Operators Association are investing £150,000 in the Patrol & Response Unit over the next year.  This team of security guards help fight trouble at bus stations, boarding buses and removing offenders where required.  It's good to hear that their work will continue.

[Image credit: Gene Hunt on Flickr]

Congestion Charge descision day announced

It seems like the question of whether Manchester will get a congestion charge (and £3 billion of public transport improvements) or not has been hanging in the air for ever.  It's not quite that long, but finally an answer is on the horizon.

The postal referendum that was recently announced will take place in early December, the Manchester Evening News reports.  The deadline for returns will be the 11th of December.  That means there's still nearly three months of campaigning for us to endure from both sides of the argument before this whole thing is finally over.

As beguiling as the war of words between the two sides is, we feel we have to point out something that the anti-charge campaigners usually fail to mention.  If the plan is approved by the people of Greater Manchester there will be vast improvements to the bus, train and tram in the region before a charge is introduced in around five years' time.  The charge will affect only those driving towards the city in the morning peak and away from it in the afternoon peak.

[Image credit: Binary Ape on Flickr]

Storm over 'Pilates' on the X41

If you're waiting for Transdev's X41 Manchester - Blackburn service and the people around you are wiggling their feet and holding strange poses then there's a perfectly reasonable explanation.  'Every Stop Helps' is a new publicly-funded scheme run by the University of Central Lancashire and the University of Salford.  The scheme encourages passengers on the X41 to work on their posture and circulation by doing simple excercises like rotating their ankles and rolling their necks.

It's a simple, slightly silly initiative with a strong pubic health message.  That's not how everyone sees it though.  The Mail Online calls it another example of "The Nanny State" and quotes Conservative MP Philip Davies as saying "‘Is this April 1st? The Government is virtually bankrupt and yet it is spending its last few pounds encouraging people to do Pilates at bus stops".

The fact that this is a university initiative funded by The Higher Education Funding Council For England, a government department set up by the Conservatives in 1992 that is designed to fund exactly this kind of thing seems to have been ignored by Mr Davies!  Controversy over nothing?  Yes - but it certainly makes a good story

GMPTE are cool, are you?

Okay, writing a blog about buses probably relegates us from any kind of position of coolness for life but it's hard to keep a straight face when some of the stuffiest organisations in the region try to tell local youths what's cool.  GMPTE, Greater Manchester Police, Greater Manchester Against Crime and Manchester City Council have got together to fund a poster campaign aimed at discouraging vandalism.

It reads: "The Cool Test: Are you street wise enough to know you are being watched?  Do you: Know it's not cool to be captured on camera damaging bus shelters. Know it's not cool to be nicked on a bus, tram or train for not buying a ticket? Know it's not col to be excluded from bus stations for being a nuisance.  Know it is cool to understand your actions may be captured on CCTV.  All actions carry consequences".

While the poster definitely carries an important message for the region's youth, preaching 'coolness' isn't the way to go about it.

Here's our Cool Test:
Do you know it isn't cool to pretend to be 'down with the kids'?
Do you know that kids will probably laugh at the poster?
Do you know it'll probably have little effect on the kinds of kids involved in vandalism and fare dodging?

We don't pretend to have the answers when it comes to reducing youth crime on public transport, preaching 'coolness' definitely isn't the way to go about it.  Still, we'd rather be preached to than be called a pig.

TIF documents reveal lots more detail... Wait, no they don't...

As we mentioned the other day, the documents that the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities submitted when they bid for the Transport Innovation Fund money have been published under the Freedom of Information Act.  The PDFs are available to download from GMPTA.

We were hoping that they'd offer lots more detail about exactly what the improvements to bus services would be.  The GM Future Transport website offers some detail about plan for bus improvements, but they're pretty general.  Other information has previously been made public detailing routes of the rapid-transit bus routes and cross-city bus routes.  As for the planned orbital routes, the only thing we've seen so far is evidence that one will involve turning the 53 route into a circular.  Beyond that we know little about them.  There's been talk of new services linking communities to Metrolink services but no details have been announced.

So, do the TIF bid documents offer any more specific details?  Er, no - not a sausage.  In fact, the details in there are actually more vague than those previously publicised.  Our conclusion?  Much of the detail is still to be decided.  With the referendum on congestion charging due to take place in December those in charge would do well to get all these things sorted as soon as possible.  General promises of improved frequencies are all well and good but perhaps too vague to sway the voters of Greater Manchester.

Mystery of Stockport's missing Metroshuttle

It was only a couple of weeks ago that GMPTA's new chairman announced plans to roll out free town centre Metroshuttle services across Greater Manchester.  Now it's emerged that funding has existed for such a service in Stockport for 18 months, and yet no service has yet emerged.

According to the Manchester Evening News, a clause in the panning permission for Tesco's Portwood store, just outside the town centre, saw funds set aside for a bus service that would help shopers travel around the town centre.  This, it was hoped, would help offset the decline in trade that was likely to affect local market traders as a result of the new Tesco store opening.

While traders say that drop in trade has happened, the bus service hasn't launched.  Stockport Council are reportedly claiming that there is on funding available for a two-day per week service and that they were waiting for funding to be increased so a daily service could be introduced.

The Council are now talking to GMPTA about making extra funding available for such a service.  Given the previous announcement about new Metroshuttle services, that doesn't seem likey to be a problem.  An Autumn launch for the Stockport service is currently being touted.

[Image credit: Gene Hunt on Flickr]

See the TIF changes for yourself

If you've been wondering why there have been no updates to the site this week, it's simply because there's not a great deal newsworthy going on!  However, the consultation over the TIF improvements and its associated congestion charging scheme has begun.

The advertising campaign has stepped up a gear too.  Posters emphasising the improvements, rather than the charge, have gone up around Greater Manchester.  A series of exhibitions are taking place around the region over the summer.  These will allow you to see the planned changes for yourself.  A full list of the exhibtions is online here.

Meanwhile, over on the Manchester Confidential website, three of the key figures in the congestion charging debate have been giving their own viewpoints on how this is al progressing.  Sir Richard Leese, Sir Howard Bernstein and Graham Stringer MP have all written articles for the site.  If you can get over the annoying and totally un-web-friendly two-column style Manchester Confidential is so fond of you should have a read of the articles here.

New GMPTA Chief plans Metroshuttle expansion, new orbital services

GMPTA's new Chair, Matt Colledge, has decided to make his presence felt on his first day in office by announcing a plan to expand Manchester's free city centre Metroshuttle bus service to other town centres in Greater Manchester.  Although the towns under consideration haven't been announced, it's likely the scheme would be popular if implemented.

The expansion of Metroshuttle mirrors West Yorkshire PTE's expansion of the Leeds Free City Bus to Huddersfield and Wakefield (with Bradford to follow later this year).  Funnily enough the Leeds scheme was brought in following the sucess of Metroshuttle - they just managed to expand it quicker than Greater Manchester.

Likely candidates for Metroshuttles would be those town centres that sprawl over a large area, rather than compact ones.  Bolton, Oldham and Stockport, for example, could all be in the running.

Other initiatives announced today include new orbital bus routes (something that is also part of the TIF package of improvements that will be put in place should congestion charging be agreed on) and better policing of buses, trams and bus lanes.

[Image credit: Gene Hunt on Flickr]