There was a good documentary on BBC Radio 4 last night in which Lynsey Hanley looked at the decline of bus services outside London.
As the blurb for it on the BBC website says:
For more than 30 years buses in the UK have run under two systems. In London, a powerful transport authority commissions and pays for bus routes it deems necessary. Outside the capital it is up to the bus companies which routes they run and to local authorities which gaps to fill, if they are able.
In the first of two episodes on Britain's transport divide, public transport user and non-driver Lynsey Hanley rides the bus and speaks to bus users in one of the UK's most isolated communities- which is bounded by not one but two motorways- visits the English city least well served by public transport and hears from the local authority that tried and failed to regain control of its buses.
She finds a country where in one corner there is a world class public bus system and the rest; where there isn't and concludes this is not merely a matter of inconvenience.
1 comment:
Actually, I think you'll find that Oxford and Cambridge both have pretty awesome bus services that extend to some of the surrounding rural areas as well. I understand that the same may also be true of Brighton, though I don't have any personal experience of it.
Now, I wonder why that is?
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