A view from the bus

Edinburgh Bus Users Group is a volunteer-run campaign which aims to provide a voice for bus users; to protecting and improving Edinburgh’s bus network for bus users and potential users.

When EBUG held its Annual General Meeting in June 2023, the future looked fair to middling for buses. As our 2024 AGM approaches, how does the future look now?

In 2023, free bus travel had been extended to under-22s in Scotland; the City of Edinburgh Council was developing a programme of significant bus priority measures; bus patronage was beginning to return after the Covid slump. Since then…

There has been a noticeably more pro-bus attitude at the City of Edinburgh Council. The revised City Mobility Plan offers some potentially big wins for buses, although these look to be for the medium term.

Edinburgh Council finalised its Public Transport and other Action Plans. The revised City Mobility Plan is a marked improvement on the original, but we still have doubts about the detail. For example, we believe it:

• Should attempt to do a bit less, but do it better.
• At times ventures into bells and whistles territory, dabbling in areas which might be described as the current transport fashion, which have arguably not passed through the ‘proof of concept’ stage.

While much of the attention has been, and remains, on Edinburgh Trams, it bears repeating that the overwhelming majority of public transport journeys in the city are by bus; something like ten times those by tram. Rail chugs along at around 4% of total trips.

The key question for EBUG is less about where the next tram route will be, but whether it will be designed almost as a stand-alone project, or properly integrated with the bus network. In our view, the Newhaven ‘extension’, which opened in 2023, failed to do so.

Then there’s the less glamorous things, which rarely get the headlines, but are actually of more interest to many passengers:

• Edinburgh’s new Bustracker system is still not working properly. No doubt it will overcome its initial teething problems, but they are taking a long time to fix.
• There are glimmerings of hope that the Scottish Government is edging towards key mechanisms help enforce bus lanes; a welcome change from previous stonewalling.
• Edinburgh’s 2024-5 budget includes an extra £300,000 for supported bus services, increasing the total to about £1.8 million/yr. It remains to be seen whether this will be swallowed up by inflation or allow some improvements to these services.

EBUG took part in pre-consultation discussions on the future of George Street, which Cockburn Association members will have followed closely. For bus users the outcome is not too bad, but not outstanding. Our approach throughout was to recognise that compromise was needed on all sides if the project was to succeed. How far the project will progress remains to be seen, not least because it isn’t clear how it will be funded.

So far so good? Unfortunately not, as the national picture has darkened. In the Scottish Government’s budget, the £500million Bus Partnership Fund was ‘paused’. Launched in 2019, and proclaimed as ‘a long-term investment £500m…to reduce the negative impacts of congestion on bus services and address the decline in bus patronage’, it would have been the biggest investment in buses for years. It’s now ‘paused’, for the second time in 5 years.

And then the Scottish Government dropped its climate targets. Now, you can argue about whether it’s best to reset your way forward if you’re obviously going to miss your targets. But what was particularly galling was when the Minister offered up ‘integrated ticketing’ as a sop; an initiative first announced in 2012.

To cap it all, in April it was reported that the Council’s lease on the bus station site is under threat when it expires in 2027, as the owners want to redevelop it for residential use. More to follow…

Edinburgh Bus Users Group was set up in 2019, partly reflecting concerns the city had rather lost its way on the key mode of public transport; a point we made to a Council meeting in 2022. There is no divine guarantee that Edinburgh will always have what is often regarded as one of the UK’s best bus networks.

Getting on for two years later, the threat is reemerging, but has changed in character. Locally, the key players have improved their game. However, it’s as if they’re now playing on a pitch which is gradually tilting uphill.

Guest blog:

Chris Day
Secretary
Edinburgh Bus Users Group