By Stephen Petter, during 2003, 2004 and to May 2005.

19th November 2002

Mike Sweet

Transport Planning

Bristol City

Dear Mike Sweet

Location of Bus Stations (and other transport related matters)

I am newly arrived in Bristol having been here now for about three months. I am well travelled having visited, lived and worked in many countries. I studied socio-technical systems for my degree course, one sixth of which was Urban Development.

It is my firm belief, based on experience and objective observation, that bus stations are best located adjacent to cities' main railway stations. I see that this is the norm in countries such as The Netherlands, where the national integrated public transport system is far in advance of what one finds here, especially in terms of the convenience of the travelling public. Often in Britain the latter seems to be regarded as relatively unimportant compared with factors such as history, commercialism, cost, private motorists' interests and sheer unimaginativeness of planners and local politicians.

In Bristol there is a need for the bus station to be relocated next to (or above) the railway station. Luckily (?) there are quite good roads in the area and there is clearly much underused space. From such a station one can imagine a variety of rapid links into the shopping and CBD, for instance with buses (perhaps aided by a flyover or underpass across the nearby one way system) plying frequently between the two. Or there could be a rapid transport system as in Sydney, or even a moving walkway.

In addition to the link to the shopping centres and CBD all the approach roads to the bus station would need bus lanes, or special bus only roads such as those serving New York's "Port Authority Terminal" (a bus station despite its title). Actually bus only roads are becoming more common, e.g. there is one in Southall running along the back of a high street.

Moreover the long distance bus ("coach") station should be no more than a short walk from the central public transport complex. Car parking might also be provided nearby.

It seems blatantly obvious to me to locate bus termini near railway stations. It is apparently obvious to transport planners in most cities in the developed world, especially those in mainland Europe. I am dismayed that this proposal is regarded as impractical in Britain. (I had a long correspondence with Wolverhampton planners on the same topic. They seemed unable to grasp the concept and came up with a stream of implausible reasons why it should be rejected and their scheme held to.)

This plan would not involve excessive cost, in fact release of land where the present bus station is located could result in a surplus. It would have little adverse effect on other traffic. The only objection might be that users like their bus route to terminate and to commence near their shops and offices, but this objection would be met by the rapid transit system between these areas and the new station. Moreover many buses going in the general direction could be routed through these areas, perhaps forming subsidiary 'stations' e.g. in Broadgate and near the Hippodrome.

Secondly I urge you to take action to speed the service from and to the Park and Ride car parks. It is ridiculous to have these buses held up in commuter traffic congestion.

Another fault that a newcomer to Bristol notices is the extraordinarily long time it takes to process passengers boarding buses. I was on a bus from near the railway station to the Museum near the University when I measured the time it took to take on passengers at College Green. It was eight minutes!.

It is also silly to make buses wend their way round a shopping centre in competition with private cars, e.g. near Castle Green. A bus from the bus station to near the railway station can take 15 minutes.

I usually travel by bicycle which allows me to observe (and smugly overtake) long lines of near stationary traffic. I seldom use my car (of which I share ownership). I have travelled by bus in Bristol only a few times. Each time I was staggered by their inefficiency. For instance I came to Bristol on a coach from London. It was held up for a long time on the M32. Eventually it went off route to the north. In the bus station there was very little helpful information. The enquiry desk was closed. (On a previous occasion I had been rudely treated by the two women there. I had I asked for a bus timetable for all their buses and they had to give me a sheaf of small tables which they regarded as too irksome.) I was misdirected and wandered around the area before being directed some way into the Broadgate Centre to get a bus to the station, where I was able to transfer (paying a second fare) to a bus to Totterdown. The journey took 50 minutes. I have already told you about my second bus journey, with its interminable delays while passengers board and fiddle with their fares.

On a previous occasion about two years ago I took a bus from St Andrews to the centre. Returning I therefore assumed I knew what the fare would be. However the bus person would not simply give me the fare according to value but insisted I state the name of the stop I wanted. I said I did not know it but would recognise it. In the end I had no option but to pay much more than I should have.

What I find hard to understand is why the bus and general traffic system is so very bad in Bristol. I see no inherent problems. As one who regards himself as something of a systems specialist this troubles me. Is it simply a matter of incompetence, or has there been gross misguided political interference?

I will add perhaps only for interest that it is not only Bristol whose public transport system disappoints. My partner and I spent a year travelling cheaply around the world, mainly by bus and train. With the exception of Bangkok, not once did we experience significant delay other than due to peasants' demonstrations in Costa Rica and Bolivia, until we were on the Piccadilly line from Heathrow. In fact each of my first three journeys back in Britain (including the coach from London to Bristol) included some gross delay.

Yours sincerely

Stephen Petter, BA, MBCS, MIMgt. (Now retired so strictly no longer Member of these societies.)

PS I have no objection to you passing this letter around, including to Councillors. I may adapt it for publication.

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The Editor

Open Lines

Evening Post

Seb Miller seems to want 'proper policing' yet goes to great lengths to excuse criminal behaviour. Speeding is not a trivial crime, it is an essential feature of incidents which kill over 3,000 and injure 37,000 people a year, many of them children. In all advanced countries, such as Canada, Australia or the USA speed is much more firmly regulated than here. Only in the underdeveloped world, where life is treated as if cheaper, do they tolerate the type of driving he seems to advocate. Other writers against speed cameras argue as if a burglar could object to CCTV cameras, or excuse his behaviour by saying that if the police had been visible outside the premises he would have kept within the law.

Similarly one can dismiss his anti-immigrant views. There have always been people willing to accept lies about groups seen as different. When I was young, the hated group, accused of being dirty, scrounging, taking our jobs, running crime, etc. etc. were the Welsh! Or the Jews. Or Maltese. People should consider just why they are so excited by anti-immigrant arguments, often palpably untrue, when so many more important events demand attention.

Instead of vilifying scapegoats why not seek to improve local problems? For instance, why do the public continue to elect a Council which is so obviously inept? According to the same edition of your paper as that in which Seb Miller's letter appears, you report that Bristol has almost the worst schools in the country, a situation that has prevailed for a long time. You also report on a study which found that Bristol buses are 'unreliable, expensive, inaccessible, and dirty, with rude and unhelpful staff'. You report that routinely in Bristol police are armed. There is serious traffic congestion yet the Council continue to permit traffic generating developments in the centre, paying scant regard to local residents' protests. You report on a shamefully neglected central cemetery, and a filthy main-line station. All this in one edition!

Why did the Transport chiefs need to commission a consultants' report? Do they never travel on the buses - not even once in a while to try them out? Is it that they despise those who do? Is it that they do not really care about quality of service, only whether they can be re-elected? I know I am not the only one to have written considered letters to them about transport in Bristol (and had no reply). Why use consultants to learn what we all know? Is the reason that it was a way of putting off action for a while longer? Can we assume that this attitude - concern with process and publication rather than with results - explains other departments' ineffectuality?

Bristolians would do much better voting for the Green Party, whose members really care about the environment and the local economy, schools and health care. If not the Greens, a good second best would be the Liberal Democrats. Anything but this lot!

Yours etc

145 Oxford Street, BS3 4RH

Tel: 904 1043

9th February, 2003

Councillor Helen Holland

Executive Member for Environment, Transport, etc.

The Council House

College Green

Bristol, BS1 5TR

Dear Councillor

Location of Bus Stations (and other transport related matters)

I wrote you a long (snail mail) letter on this topic early in January.

I have had no acknowledgement. Is this normal practice in Bristol? In towns where I have lived previously Councillors expressed appreciation of citizens who showed an interest. One expected an immediate acknowledgement and a full reply later.

Am I to add this apparent contempt of the electorate to my fast growing list of complaints about the running of Bristol?

Yours sincerely

Stephen Petter

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26th March, 2003

Planning Officers

Public Consultation re Strategic Plans.

Location of Bus Stations

I have studied the relevant sections of the Plan and note that fine words are said about the need for good public transport and the need to integrate all forms, yet the plan itself seems to ignore these priorities.

It is my firm belief, based on experience and objective observation, that bus stations are best located adjacent to cities' main railway stations. I see that this is the norm in countries such as The Netherlands, where the national integrated public transport system is far in advance of what one finds here, especially in terms of the convenience of the travelling public. Often in Britain the latter seems to be regarded as relatively unimportant compared with factors such as history, commercialism, cost, private motorists' interests and sheer unimaginativeness of planners and local politicians.

In Bristol there is a need for the bus station to be relocated next to (or above) the railway station. There are quite good roads in the area and there is clearly much underused space.

From such a station one can imagine a variety of rapid links into the shopping and CBD, for instance with buses (perhaps aided by a flyover or underpass across the nearby one way system) plying frequently between the two. Or there could be a rapid transport system as in Sydney, or a moving walkway.

In addition to the link to the shopping centres and CBD all the approach roads to the bus station would need bus lanes, or special bus only roads such as those serving New York's "Port Authority Terminal" (a bus station despite its title). Actually bus only roads are becoming more common.

Moreover the long distance bus ("coach") station should be no more than a short walk from the central public transport complex. Car parking might also be provided nearby.

It seems obvious to me to locate bus stations near railway stations. It is apparently obvious to transport planners in most cities in the developed world, especially those in mainland Europe.

Yours sincerely

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3 April 2003

Dear Diane Bunyan

I write to you in your capacity as my local councillor, but aware of your wider responsibilities.

I wrote to you some weeks ago about the location of the bus station and am very concerned at having had no acknowledgement of that letter nor another enquiring as to the first. I am now 65 and have all my life taken an interest in local politics. I have lived and worked in many parts of England and abroad. I have never before had NO RESPONSE to a letter to my local authority.

I contrast this with a continual stream of obviously expensive public relations material issuing from the Council talking of participation and consulting and accountability and I am afraid I am reminded of 1984.

I eventually went to the Planning section of the Council and after insisting on seeing an officer (against an almost overwhelming determination that I should merely write) I had a very encouraging conversation with a team leader.

She seemed to accept the power of my case that a bus station should be located adjacent to the railway station. It seems to me that this has never been considered - the planners have simply accepted the existing site. Now there are plans to develop the bus station on its existing site, within a complex including residential. (This itself is ridiculous - who wants to live on top of a noisy, polluted bus depot? Plus the development near a transport node should be the like of arenas, convention halls, sports stadiums, etc.)

Meanwhile one sees several useful sites near the railway station.

However this officer could only suggest to me that my course should be to raise objections to all developments proposed on sites suitable for the bus station. I am sure this would be useless and simply obstructive.

What is needed is a high level policy decision. This needs to be by someone of your stature. A councillor concerned for the inhabitants' facilities and convenience now and way into the future. And you as the leader of a town seeking recognition for imaginative, people-centred development.

The present location of the bus station is due solely to historic precedent. It is on a valuable but basically inconvenient site. If it were resited next to (or above or below) the railway station with many routes going to and through the central business and shopping area, it could be far more convenient and efficient.

But 'Planning' like so much else has become a largely bureaucratic (though consultant aided) function. A radical, people centred innovation needs to be championed by you.

(Not that my idea is an innovation. It is normal practice in most parts of the world.

Yours sincerely

Stephen Petter

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Kit Stokes 26th June 2003

Central Area Planning Team, Bristol City Council

Brunel House, St George's Road

Bristol

BS1 5UY

Dear Kit Stokes

Bus Station Regeneration.

I object to the proposal for the following reasons

1. It is not the best location for a bus station.

a. Bus stations in towns this size should be located at the railway station.

b. In addition to passenger convenience one needs to think of noise and air pollution and of increasing traffic flows in busy areas affecting safety and congestion.

c. The demand for bus services in the central business and shopping district can be (and currently mainly is) met by buses travelling through the area. There is no need for routes to terminate there.

d. There is plenty of space near the railway station for a bus station.

2. It is not good to locate housing adjacent to or on top of a bus station, due to noise, pollution and danger. It is all the more unacceptable to locate affordable housing in such a situation. Such homes will tend to have more children who will be coming and going in rush hours. It is an almost studied insult to low income occupiers.

3. There seems no logical connection between bus stations, residences and law courts. They neither have anything in common nor do they complement each other.

4. The sole reason for 'regenerating' the bus station in its present location is historical. We look to our professional planners to consider our long term interests, not merely to concede to short the demands of developers whose priorities inevitably differ.

Yours sincerely

Stephen Petter

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Dear Councillor

6th June 2003

As a member of the new Council with its fresh political makeup you have the opportunity to rectify a serious fault in the long term planning of Bristol. It needs to be appreciated by most Councillors and at least one needs to run with it.

It is now a matter of urgency since a grandiose plan for a new (and weirdly conceived) complex of bus station, law courts and residential development has been announced.

The concept is simple and utterly normal practice in almost every city in the world. (I have worked abroad and recently took a year out to travel widely.)

You are fortunate in that there are plenty of sites adjacent to the railway station. Moreover there are plans for an arena that would attract many bus and rail passengers. Also it is on the ring road. And the proposed tram route.

In fact there is everything going for the idea other than lethargy, complacency, short-sightedness, custom, and an apparent unwillingness to do anything other than produce (to an excellent standard), glossy, expensive, colourful plans, models, brochures etc. which include fine words about integrated transport, and support for rail travel, and passenger convenience, etc etc. But where's the beef? Look around to see how little has been achieved. Compare Bristol with other cities. Don't those in authority ever visit the continent?

If the new bus station/magistrates court/affordable homes complex is approved we will be stuck with this sub-optimal transport setup for another hundred or two years. Now you have a chance to DO SOMETHING, not just dumbly approve whatever monstrosity the developers cook up.

Do what almost every city in the first or third world does. Put your bus station next to the railway station! Think of the users, not the developers.

Yours sincerely

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By Stephen Petter, traveller, cyclist, motorist, and very occasional public transport user.

I have written to all Councillors outlining my objection, which I shall summarise in a moment.

I thank the six Councillors who replied - all very positive except those on this committee who told me they were not permitted to express an opinion. However I took the fact that they wrote to me as an encouragement.

I will say however that I had written to the department and/or to its chair three times about this matter and never received so much as an acknowledgement.

I took this to be a reflection of contempt for citizens' views, in sharp contrast to the grand assurances in the very expensive documentation published.

To summarise my objection. It is that Marlborough Road is not a suitable location for a bus station and that if is refurbished now the city will be stuck with it for decades to come.

It is impractical to have bus routes from every district to every other district. But if most bus routes include a central hub, then passengers can fairly conveniently travel everywhere in the region with only one change. This I would have thought so blatantly obvious as not to need saying.

If it's not obvious then I urge you all to go to Amsterdam airport and from there use public transport to get around the city and visit The Hague. Take your planners with you!

Having accepted that bus routes should radiate from a hub the next question is where should it be. Again the answer seems glaringly obvious. At the railway station, for no other reason than that you cannot move the railway station to the bus station.

Moreover, near the railway station you have acres of space.

Need I say more? Only that with a new political setup you, each one of you councillors, have an opportunity to make policy that would greatly enhance the quality of life in this city.

It seems to me that hitherto this committee has allowed itself to be a victim of historical and commercial pressures. Your main priority in this case should be the well being of public transport users. Perhaps more important, the well being of potential public transport users!

Thank you.

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Website: http://home.clara.net/spetter

28th August 2003

Dear Councillor Barbara Janke

Thank you for replying fully to my letter and also may I thank and congratulate you for accepting the task of leading the City Council. I have great hopes for the change of administration. Liberal Democrats seek PR which will tend to result in administrations like the one you now lead and it will be interesting to see it in practice.

My letter was about the location of a bus station in Bristol. I realise there was a major flaw in my case but I had been informed that the only way I could make my point was by raising objection to existing planning applications. If this were true it would be very regrettable.

I had wide support for my two contentions

1. There should be a central bus station (the hub) where transfer from one bus service to another is safe and easy.

2. The central hub should be located at ("beside, over or under") the railway station.

I am sure the Council has the power to put such a cocept into its long term plans.

My plea to you is that you take steps to enable this - at least to secure one of the several sites near the station so that this may be possible in the future.

What I propose is common sense. It is to be seen in almost every town in mainland Europe and most other advanced and developing countries. Only in Britain does one see public transport nodes scattered throughout the town.

Yours sincerely

Stephen Petter

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Website: http://sp37.port5.com/myblog

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Website: http://sp37.port5.com/myblog

145 Oxford Street, BRISTOL, BS3 4RH

Website: http://sp37.port5.com/myblog

3rd December 2003

Alex Perry

Managing Director

First Bristol Bus

Enterprise House

Easton Road

Bristol, BS5 0DZ

Dear Alex Perry

I am a co-opted member of the Environment, Transport and Leisure (ETL) Scrutiny Commission of Bristol City Council and also a member of the Transport Forum, but I am writing to you in an informal capacity though at the suggestion of Councillor Anne White, Executive Member of the Council for ETL.

Ideally what I would like is the opportunity to have a conversation with you for 5 to 15 minutes.

I have been mooting the idea that Bristol needs a local and regional bus interchange facility, a hub, that would provide bus users with several benefits - Shelter, Safety, Security, Services, and Speedy transfer from one route to another. "The Centre" as it is at present is not an ideal place.

The council members and officials tell me that my idea though good in theory is not feasible because First Bus would not accept it. I find this hard to believe since anything which improved bus transport should lead to an increase in usage and more profit for First Bus.

Using 'join