The West of England Combined Authority expects the consultation to start around Christmas time
The Bristol Post has reported a proposal to create a redesigned bus network for Bristol which would see services reorganised into main radial routes linked by new orbital services. The proposal claims this would increase the number of destinations served, but could require people to change buses or walk further to board a bus.
Talking about the scheme proposed by Arup, Adam Crowther, Bristol’s Head of Strategic City Transport, said: “It is really, really ambitious and it will take some pretty radical interventions,” and that the initial consultation would seek feedback from users before proposing any changes.
“Are they willing to walk further to a bus stop? Are they willing to change from bus to bus? Are they willing to commit collectively to giving up road space for buses and make that network the network we really want it to be?”
The plan would see fewer radial routes, but each with high frequency services connected to orbital services at a number of interchange points. Councillors welcomed the idea in principle, but warned that the interchange points would need to be welcoming, safe and weatherproof if the idea were to be successful, and that the provision of good real time information was essential.
Labour Councillor Mark Bradshaw said that these changes would need to go hand-in-hand with smart ticketing, to ensure passengers were not charged more to make their journey. Adam also said that there would need to be significant improvement to bus priority measures and reduction of road space available to cars. The West of England Combined Authority (WECA) expects the consultation to start around Christmas, with a strategy agreed sometime in the spring.
