Opinion

Blind leading the blind while driving a bus

A major study has found bus and rail passenger journeys have not increased significantly in more than a decade
A major study has found bus and rail passenger journeys have not increased significantly in more than a decade A major study has found bus and rail passenger journeys have not increased significantly in more than a decade

AS one of those odd people who doesn't own a car, I'm an advocate for public transport, particularly buses.

What's not to love about buses? You can get where you need to go and sleep at the same time.

When I'm not scrounging a lift or walking out of sheer stinginess, public transport is the way to travel.

The monotony of a trip up the M1 to Belfast is much better when you're snoozing through it.

It's a recluse's dream too. On buses and trains it's perfectly acceptable to blatantly ignore everyone around you, even when sardined on a particularly popular service.

I'm sure you're already sold. The newly converted can form an orderly queue at their nearest bus stop.

Unfortunately, not everyone is convinced of such transportation wonders. In what will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone, our public transport system is vastly under performing.

A study has found bus and rail passenger journeys have not increased significantly in more than 10 years.

Commuters are less likely to use public transport than a decade ago, and in Belfast bus speeds on key routes are getting slower.

Although rail service passenger journeys in the past decade have doubled, buses have only increased by 1.5 per cent. Within this, Metro increased by almost a third, but Ulsterbus suffered a 12 per cent plunge.

Stormont has invested £1.1bn in public transport since 2002. That might seem large, but Northern Ireland spends much less per head of the population than in Britain – and the gap is growing.

The proportion of funding for public transport compared to roads has been squeezed over the years to just 23 per cent.

People in Northern Ireland remain "wedded to the car" according to the audit office analysis, and nothing has really happened in the past decade to change that.

It's not hard to see that buses and trains are failing to catch on.

Price, choice, speed, space, punctuality – all factors the average person considers devoid from our public transport system.

Timetables and routes appear tangled and counter intuitive. The Belfast Metro system totally evades me. It's easier just to walk.

And the last time I was on a train it was embarrassing to peer through the window and see car after car whizzing past.

Bus and rail stations act as the gateways to the world. For tourists they are often the first and last places they see on their travels, and the service they provide informs their view of a place.

So at best it's worrying to picture the Europa bus centre as that gateway to Belfast and Northern Ireland.

The convoluted design, ageing decor, uninviting metal seats – what must visitors think? Just be glad Game of Thrones' Kit Harington didn't loosen his tongue more about Belfast on that US talk show.

Millions of passengers power-walk through the Great Northern Mall onto Great Victoria Street, but something's clearly amiss when shop units seem to change hands every six months despite such concentrated footfall.

It doesn't help that Translink has been forced to close its dedicated bus lane into the depot on weekend evenings because of youths vandalising vehicles.

Of course work on a new public transport hub redevelopment at the Europa station is expected to begin in 2017. This can't come soon enough.

Efforts have also been made over the years to improve public transport uptake such as through park-and-ride schemes, which are very much welcomed.

The audit office report also said bus fares in Belfast "are relatively competitive" with cities in Britain, while rail tickets are "generally cheaper".

But it's clear public transport has an image problem. Northern Ireland remains a place where most people seem to leave the bus behind in their school years and only return upon collecting their senior citizen's pass.

Depressingly our only memorable images of buses are when they were hijacked and set on fire during the Troubles.

Public transport only featured in the north's election campaign once, but that was only because London's double-decker buses are made in Antrim.

The DUP proudly commandeered one of the red 'Boris' buses at a Wrightbus factory in Antrim as a photo-friendly backdrop for its manifesto launch.

There was no sign of political parties scrambling for seats aboard a bog-standard Ulsterbus during the campaign trail – or at any other time for that matter.

Aside from image, there's also a long-term vision problem. The Department for Regional Department has passed through the hands of three ministers in the time period covered by this latest report.

One of the most worrying findings was that there is a total scarcity of staff skilled in dealing with public transport within the department.

It said the "lack of adequately skilled transport planning professionals limits the department's ability to guide and drive best practice in public transport".

Effectively, it's the blind leading the blind – while driving a bus.

:: Anita Robinson is away.