Buses are a right – not a privilege, says Sandy Hore-Ruthven
24.11.18
Today Sandy Hore-Ruthven, our candidate for Mayor in 2020, spoke at the Bristol bus protest. Here’s what Sandy said:
A good bus service means people can get where they need to go, when they need to go. The ability to travel should not be based on your income or where you live.
Only yesterday I was working with a young man who is third generation unemployed. He lives in Hartcliffe and is looking to turn his life around – get himself out of the rut he is in. He is looking for work but many of the jobs he can find are in Avonmouth. He can’t take them – the two hour one way journey, the cost and the lack of services at the right times of day means these jobs are not available to him.
At rush hour buses move at 6mph along with all of the other traffic. Business suffers and our health suffers too.
Bristol consistently exceeds World Health Organisation pollution guidelines, day after day, year after year.
And yet – more people than ever before are using buses in Bristol. We are bucking the national trend despite the problems – imagine what we could do if we had a great service – one that was cheap and reached the across the whole city.
Only with bold action and imaginative thinking can we solve this problem. It’s time First Bus to sort its services, for central government to allow Bristol to chose how it runs it’s buses and it is time for the Council to be bold and raise the money they need to invest more making fares cheaper and opening new routes.
A good, cheap and efficient bus service is good for everyone. Everyone gets to where they want to go faster. It’s good for business, it’s good for jobs, it’s good for our health, it’s good for our environment.
When we have a great bus service Bristol will be an even better place to live for everyone.