Bosses at First Bus in Bristol have apologised after giving out water bottles to new students at the University of the West of England with First Bus branding and the phrase ‘walking sucks’. The bus company said it was a light-hearted pun but ‘may have missed the mark’ after a picture of one of the bottles caused a backlash on social media.
First Bus has been wrestling with massive staffing problems with a huge rise in complaints that people waiting at bus stops across the city have had to walk because their bus has not turned up. And First, along with the West of England Combined Authority are handling a host of cuts to services and routes across Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Bath and North East Somerset and North Somerset.
The branded water bottles were given to new students at UWE during Freshers Week - First run a number of buses that connect UWE’s campuses in Frenchay, Fishponds and Bower Ashton. An image of one of the bottles was initially posted on Reddit, and then tweeted by Toby Wells, the infrastructure lead for the Bristol Cycling lobby group.
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He asked: “Is this really the right message to be going with?” City councillor Marley Bennett was among many who weren’t impressed: “The cheek of this when their buses never turn up,” he replied. “At least walking is reliable.” The Bristol Walking Alliance group described the message on the bottle as ‘not appropriate’, and former city councillor Gus Hoyt added: “Ironically I stopped using Bristol’s First Buses very soon after moving here and realising that over 90 per cent of the time it WAS indeed quicker to walk.”
A spokesperson for First Bus confirmed that the bottles were real - many commenting on social media could not believe First Bus would have produced the bottles - and described it as a pun, because the bottles have built-in straws that you have to suck to drink from.
“We gave these water bottles to fresher students as a welcome gift and the slogan was meant to be a light-hearted pun,” she said. “We certainly didn’t intend to denigrate walking which we recognise is a highly sustainable way of getting around. We appreciate though that the slogan may have missed the mark and would like to say sorry for that,” she added.
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