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Letter: Feasibility Work Is Required Before We Can Decide to Reintroduce a Shuttle-Bus
Published on: 16 Sep, 2019
Updated on: 16 Sep, 2019
Guildford shuttle-bus
From Fiona White
Lib Dem borough councillor for Westborough and deputy leader of GBC
In response to: Guildford Lib Dem Plan To Check Out Return Of Free Shuttle-Bus Causes Caustic Replies
I am very proud to have led the council that introduced the shuttle-bus service to Guildford. It was very popular. A lot of people found it very useful to help them negotiate Guildford’s rather steep High Street and I am told that it helped to boost shops and other businesses at the top of the town.
It was closed down some years ago and if we want to start it up again, it is important to carry out a feasibility study to see whether it would be economically viable. Local authority finances are in a very different place now than they were when the shuttle-bus last ran and even then it had to be heavily subsidised.
In the next few months, Guildford Borough Council will be going into our budget process. We need to have the information on the shuttle-bus to see whether it would be possible to include it in the budget or whether other council services should take priority.
We all want to do our best for Guildford and provide services while managing our finances responsibly.
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Responses to Letter: Feasibility Work Is Required Before We Can Decide to Reintroduce a Shuttle-Bus
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Stuart Taylor
September 17, 2019 at 1:38 pm
Perhaps someone could investigate whether the Park & Ride services could incorporate extra stops and allow passengers at the bottom of town, to travel free of charge to the top end of the High Street?
Editor’s note: At the moment, it is only a feasibility study that is being considered.
Julian Lyon
September 17, 2019 at 10:55 pm
If the Park & Ride buses were to travel through the town (say, Onslow to Merrow and Artington to Spectrum) this would allow for at least some of the benefits that Stuart Taylor highlights. If more of the buses were to be through buses this would make it easier for other passengers to travel around the town.
Equally, there needs to be a ticketing system that supports hop-on, hop-off services, and the pricing of buses and the economic model for Park & Rides also needs to be addressed.
Plenty to think about but we need to see more urgent action and not just one study after another coming along behind each other like the proverbial double-decker buses.
George Potter
September 21, 2019 at 6:14 pm
This is actually part of why a feasibility study is needed. I was curious whether a Park & Ride bus route could simply have more stops added but it turns out there are regulations which mean that Park & Ride buses are usually only allowed to make A to B journeys without stopping along the way.
And it’s precisely because of the existence of this kind of unexpected regulations that a feasibility study is needed.
But I also very much agree that we need a much better ticketing and pricing system for Park & Ride services.
George Potter is a Lib Dem borough councillor for Burpham