Brighton bus routes under threat (From The Argus)

name and shame these routes, but probably the 56,57,81,38 etc.

I wonder what Ms De Vere - who has stated on the forum that she supports sustainable and public transport systems - has to stay about the actions of her political colleagues?

"A spokesman for the Conservative group told The Argus the bus subsidy would be cut because the council currently pays more per head on subsidy than other local authorities."...rath
er than look at the behaviour, surely its better to look at and develop an understanding of the behaviour?

which party put us in so much debt in the first place. and good for the tories to realise that the car is here to stay and hopefully it will become a greener mode of transport and not an extinct one. better road layout will ease congestion not lane closures. buses are highly profitable for mr french and only 10% of road tax is spent on the roads, so the car user is unfairly taxed and penalised in every respect. we need to encourage more green cars (not in colour) the ones that are car tax free with free parking and permits, that way the gas guzzlers will soon disappear, and we will have an integrated clean and public transport system.

If the cut in subsidies does take place then the bus company could save a lot of money by cutting the frequency of certain buses. No. 49 comes to mind first - how many people waiting for their bus get fed up with seeing 49 after 49 coming along and when theirs comes after 30 minutes they can't get on because it is full up. As far as the no.38 is concerned,caeos,suss
ex, I understand that it is not subsidised anymore and that is the reason it onlu runs from Meadowview to the Open Market now

bug eye wrote:
which party put us in so much debt in the first place. and good for the tories to realise that the car is here to stay and hopefully it will become a greener mode of transport and not an extinct one. better road layout will ease congestion not lane closures. buses are highly profitable for mr french and only 10% of road tax is spent on the roads, so the car user is unfairly taxed and penalised in every respect. we need to encourage more green cars (not in colour) the ones that are car tax free with free parking and permits, that way the gas guzzlers will soon disappear, and we will have an integrated clean and public transport system.

To begin, the reason all developed countries are in debt is due to the global credit crunch leading to a recession and I note that all those in power, regardless of political persuasion, agreed it was better to run up national debt than cause a complete collapse of the global economy - I challenge you to find a single leader of a developed country that did not take the same action taken here in the UK and around the world; the issue transcends partisan political arguments and is simple economics. I also suggest that your tactic would result in a private/individualis
ed transport system but there we go. I must ask, what about those who can't afford to buy and run such cars? I ask only because I note the potentially impacted areas are those with a higher proprotion of those in the lower socio-economic groups or on a fixed-income (eg pensioners). Or is it simply back to the case of 'get on your bikes' as a infamous Tory once said? And again, I note the reason put forward to cut is a simplistic non-sequitur and is probably hiding the real reason - which the polical elite has decided not to divulge to us poor scmucks.

Government ministers, who all have homes near the tube network, just love to tax the car like it's an optional extra for everyone else. At the same time they force housing quotas on districts that can only function with high levels of car usage.

Anyway I would like to see the Bus fare from Hove Town hall to Churchill Square being treated as being within the central area.

How can this not be central Hove?

i doubt Charlotte-De-Hyphen-
Vere knows what a bus is as she floats along like the Queen in her Chauffeur driven Roller!

Being working class I am up at 5.30 and have to drive to work as there are not cheaper options for me. Why should my council tax pay for better paid people to swan around on vastly subsidised busses and whilst we are thinking about it who pays for all the OAPs to travel around all day so they are not bored indoors.

Get really fed up with people complaining about pensioners having a free bus pass. What about parents getting on the bus paying one fare then taking up 2/3 seats with a buggy and another child. Some pensioners cannot afford the luxury of a car so travelling by bus or walking is the only option.

Living in the real world wrote:
Being working class I am up at 5.30 and have to drive to work as there are not cheaper options for me. Why should my council tax pay for better paid people to swan around on vastly subsidised busses and whilst we are thinking about it who pays for all the OAPs to travel around all day so they are not bored indoors.

who pays for the oap passes? you do mate. After all, the government had to win the "grey" voters over somehow. As for subsidised routes, Use it or Lose it. Thats why the North Peacehaven to Newhaven (14) was cut to one an hour. Council did a census / survey and not enough folks used it so in the councils view it was no longer viable.

How much profit does the bus company make from our city? Time to plough a bit back into the community that has done you so well B&H Buses. In these times we all have to give a little more added value!

twosugars wrote:

Living in the real world wrote: Being working class I am up at 5.30 and have to drive to work as there are not cheaper options for me. Why should my council tax pay for better paid people to swan around on vastly subsidised busses and whilst we are thinking about it who pays for all the OAPs to travel around all day so they are not bored indoors.

who pays for the oap passes? you do mate. After all, the government had to win the "grey" voters over somehow. As for subsidised routes, Use it or Lose it. Thats why the North Peacehaven to Newhaven (14) was cut to one an hour. Council did a census / survey and not enough folks used it so in the councils view it was no longer viable.

Good point - and that should be the basis for cutting or removing subsidies ie a strong evidence base rather than the 'reason' tendered.

Maybe the bus companies would make more money if they were to abolish the daily saver ticket. Single ticket is £1.80- Saver ticket is £3.60. We all know that people buy the saver ticket to go to and from work. Many are then passed on to friends and family for further use during the same day so you can in effect have 2-3 people using the same ticket. a simple oneway or return ticket would rectifiy this problem and ensure that everyone buy a ticket for them selves

captbaz wrote:
Maybe the bus companies would make more money if they were to abolish the daily saver ticket. Single ticket is £1.80- Saver ticket is £3.60. We all know that people buy the saver ticket to go to and from work. Many are then passed on to friends and family for further use during the same day so you can in effect have 2-3 people using the same ticket. a simple oneway or return ticket would rectifiy this problem and ensure that everyone buy a ticket for them selves

The bus company makes more than enough money as it is. This is about the council's subsidy being removed (maybe). If you are suggesting that the bus company itself provides these services, subsidised by its more profitable routes, thats a non-starter.

captbaz wrote:
Maybe the bus companies would make more money if they were to abolish the daily saver ticket. Single ticket is £1.80- Saver ticket is £3.60. We all know that people buy the saver ticket to go to and from work. Many are then passed on to friends and family for further use during the same day so you can in effect have 2-3 people using the same ticket. a simple oneway or return ticket would rectifiy this problem and ensure that everyone buy a ticket for them selves

I would offer the view that the Saver Ticket (and other such Season 'type' tickets) is the associated cost with handling and processing the cash. Hence when you look at the London Underground system, a single cash fare is £3 whereas the same fare paid by Oyster is £1.50 - the differential is a combination of a lever to change passengers' behaviour but the driver being that it is cheaper to process electronic payments (in the long term, once captial expenditure on new systems is recovered).

Surely the answer to increase the age people get OAP passes to 65. The number of OAPs I see going one stop and getting off. This cost me and other council tax payers 90p a time! What is wrong with walking? It is the same with mothers and babies. My parents' generation used to walk. No wonder there are so many obses people. It is due to the lack of exercise!

The Tories say: We are going to cut spending....this equals jobs cuts however you want to look at it.
We have almost two million unemployed now, so hold on tight we're in for a bumpy ride if this lot get in and start slashing spending even more.
Oh and then there is their obsession with the policy of helping married couples....so if you have been married six times and have kids all over the place that you don't pay for, that's fine, as long as you are married and vote Labour. So that excludes more than 50 per cent of the electorate. Just plain weird.
The Labour lot are hopeless, so who should we vote for.

Granny wrote:
If the cut in subsidies does take place then the bus company could save a lot of money by cutting the frequency of certain buses. No. 49 comes to mind first - how many people waiting for their bus get fed up with seeing 49 after 49 coming along and when theirs comes after 30 minutes they can't get on because it is full up. As far as the no.38 is concerned,caeos,suss

ex, I understand that it is not subsidised anymore and that is the reason it onlu runs from Meadowview to the Open Market now

but those services are not the ones funded/partly funded by the council! council subsidies go to allow routes that are not normally viable on their own, to run outside normal hours. these would include 81/81a, 27, 38, which cover areas that NEED some sort of service evenings and weekends, but are technically under-used. i'm sure the people of meadowview, goldstone valley and westdene will be pleased to hear that their evening and weekend buses may disappear, thanks to tory transport cuts. this has absolutely nothing to do with the bus company withdrawing them, but without some authority help, these routes are un-tenable on their own. having driven them myself, i can assure you that 81's in the evenings are like driving yourself around, after about 8pm.

Zamora25 wrote:
Surely the answer to increase the age people get OAP passes to 65. The number of OAPs I see going one stop and getting off. This cost me and other council tax payers 90p a time! What is wrong with walking? It is the same with mothers and babies. My parents' generation used to walk. No wonder there are so many obses people. It is due to the lack of exercise!

Maybe you should be practising a bit of what you preach! You seem to be spending alot of time passing judgement on other people's use of buses while....er...sittin
g on buses.

Cutting spending from public funds is fine as long as it is done in a fair and balanced way. Labour are spend spend spend without a care. If the Tories win the next GE and cut cut cut they will not survive 2 terms. Cut in balance way to get the debt down and the public will respect it. Take away from the elderly and children and they will not.

Get rid of the 11X this just goes between the town halls and in only used when the staff are going to and from work, yet it runs all day usualy empty. I bet that would save between £70,000 and £100,00 a year

davyboy wrote:

Granny wrote: If the cut in subsidies does take place then the bus company could save a lot of money by cutting the frequency of certain buses. No. 49 comes to mind first - how many people waiting for their bus get fed up with seeing 49 after 49 coming along and when theirs comes after 30 minutes they can't get on because it is full up. As far as the no.38 is concerned,caeos,suss ex, I understand that it is not subsidised anymore and that is the reason it onlu runs from Meadowview to the Open Market now

but those services are not the ones funded/partly funded by the council! council subsidies go to allow routes that are not normally viable on their own, to run outside normal hours. these would include 81/81a, 27, 38, which cover areas that NEED some sort of service evenings and weekends, but are technically under-used. i'm sure the people of meadowview, goldstone valley and westdene will be pleased to hear that their evening and weekend buses may disappear, thanks to tory transport cuts. this has absolutely nothing to do with the bus company withdrawing them, but without some authority help, these routes are un-tenable on their own. having driven them myself, i can assure you that 81's in the evenings are like driving yourself around, after about 8pm.

Yeah but the beauty of accounting, means that the slash in subsidies can be factored into reducing unnecessary bus routes, like the 49 / 7 which run every few minutes, with double deckers at about a 20% occupancy rate.

Mr Lahey wrote:

davyboy wrote:

Granny wrote: If the cut in subsidies does take place then the bus company could save a lot of money by cutting the frequency of certain buses. No. 49 comes to mind first - how many people waiting for their bus get fed up with seeing 49 after 49 coming along and when theirs comes after 30 minutes they can't get on because it is full up. As far as the no.38 is concerned,caeos,suss ex, I understand that it is not subsidised anymore and that is the reason it onlu runs from Meadowview to the Open Market now

but those services are not the ones funded/partly funded by the council! council subsidies go to allow routes that are not normally viable on their own, to run outside normal hours. these would include 81/81a, 27, 38, which cover areas that NEED some sort of service evenings and weekends, but are technically under-used. i'm sure the people of meadowview, goldstone valley and westdene will be pleased to hear that their evening and weekend buses may disappear, thanks to tory transport cuts. this has absolutely nothing to do with the bus company withdrawing them, but without some authority help, these routes are un-tenable on their own. having driven them myself, i can assure you that 81's in the evenings are like driving yourself around, after about 8pm.

Yeah but the beauty of accounting, means that the slash in subsidies can be factored into reducing unnecessary bus routes, like the 49 / 7 which run every few minutes, with double deckers at about a 20% occupancy rate.

The only factor the council will consider is "how many passengers use the subsidised route/s. If the answer is "Not enough to make it viable" then the subsidy will stop and the bus company will use the buses on other, more profitable routes. Thats not the bus companies fault, they have to show a profit for the shareholders or those same shareholders will sell their shares and the company will go under, the same as in any other industry. Some say that would be a good thing and we should have a "state" run bus service paid for by the council. But then you would end up with ancient buses due to lack of investment and a one an hour service (think back to southdown bus days) and the routes with not enough passengers would still be cut. Basically, whether the buses were privately or publicly run, it would still be a case of "use it or lose it!"

Why is The Argus so determined to pursue an agenda that is so clearly anti-Conservative. Surely the story here is that Brighton & Hove taxpayers pay more subsidy per head than other authorities, and so the Council have cut the subsidy. The only voices trying to give this a political spin is journalists at The Argus who seem increasingly subservient to their Labour and Green Party puppet masters.

To quote The Economist this week, "the state's share of GDP has risen from 37% in 2000 to 52% now...in parts of Britain the state now accounts for a larger share of the economy than it did in communist countries in the old eastern bloc".

Cuts need to be made from the inflated Labour state, and £200,000 is a mere drop in the ocean for a city already filled to the brim with buses. As a hard-working taxpayer like most I want better value for money from my council and trimming the fat, as is the case here, is by far preferable to large scale cuts.

Labour Cllr Gill Mitchell clearly doesn't have the stomach to take the tough decisions that this city needs. It's very easy to keep spending, much tougher to cut back.

twosugars wrote:

Mr Lahey wrote:

davyboy wrote:

Granny wrote: If the cut in subsidies does take place then the bus company could save a lot of money by cutting the frequency of certain buses. No. 49 comes to mind first - how many people waiting for their bus get fed up with seeing 49 after 49 coming along and when theirs comes after 30 minutes they can't get on because it is full up. As far as the no.38 is concerned,caeos,suss ex, I understand that it is not subsidised anymore and that is the reason it onlu runs from Meadowview to the Open Market now

but those services are not the ones funded/partly funded by the council! council subsidies go to allow routes that are not normally viable on their own, to run outside normal hours. these would include 81/81a, 27, 38, which cover areas that NEED some sort of service evenings and weekends, but are technically under-used. i'm sure the people of meadowview, goldstone valley and westdene will be pleased to hear that their evening and weekend buses may disappear, thanks to tory transport cuts. this has absolutely nothing to do with the bus company withdrawing them, but without some authority help, these routes are un-tenable on their own. having driven them myself, i can assure you that 81's in the evenings are like driving yourself around, after about 8pm.

Yeah but the beauty of accounting, means that the slash in subsidies can be factored into reducing unnecessary bus routes, like the 49 / 7 which run every few minutes, with double deckers at about a 20% occupancy rate.

The only factor the council will consider is "how many passengers use the subsidised route/s. If the answer is "Not enough to make it viable" then the subsidy will stop and the bus company will use the buses on other, more profitable routes. Thats not the bus companies fault, they have to show a profit for the shareholders or those same shareholders will sell their shares and the company will go under, the same as in any other industry. Some say that would be a good thing and we should have a "state" run bus service paid for by the council. But then you would end up with ancient buses due to lack of investment and a one an hour service (think back to southdown bus days) and the routes with not enough passengers would still be cut. Basically, whether the buses were privately or publicly run, it would still be a case of "use it or lose it!"

Corporation were just as guilty of that. In blue bus days the 49 ran every 20-30 minutes at best. Brighton and Hove were just a part of Southdown who believed in cutting costs to the bone. There was a culture of "If it doesn't work, whack it with a hammer until it does" (The hammer had to be purchased by the engineer of course, after all, costs), Made Churchill Square colourful though. Blue and green buses everywhere. Anyone remember that office block above the street?