Glasgow residents are “at their wits' end” with the city’s buses and can’t wait eight years for public control, a councillor has said.
Labour’s Cllr Kieran Turner said citizens are late for work, with some reporting commuting times have doubled, and missing hospital appointments due to “woefully inadequate” services.
He said a council route map showed “a new system of bus governance would be in place in 2030” and asked Cllr Angus Millar, the city’s transport convener, if Glasgow could wait that long.
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Cllr Millar, SNP, said the council administration is committed to exploring “opportunities for greater public control” but it “cannot happen overnight”.
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A recent report revealed a franchise model, which would allow the council to regulate fares and routes, would cost up to £15m and take “at least seven years to implement”.
Speaking at a full council meeting, Cllr Turner said: “Buses are often the only realistic option for public transport and as colleagues across the chamber know, these services are woefully inadequate.
“While some of the problems, driver shortages for example, have been impacted by the pandemic, the story of bus services over the past few years has been increased fares, reduced reliability and reduced services across the board, leading to missed hospital appointments, problems getting to work and doing nothing to help us create a shift in public transport and tackle climate change.”
He said constituents are “at their wits' end and complain that their previous hour-long commute takes nearly two hours to complete”. “I don’t think the people of this city can wait another eight years for things to improve,” he added.
The council report stated a franchising scheme has “the potential to offer a ‘single integrated decision maker’ but “relies on untested legislation that will cost the local transport authority £4-15m to build a business case”. Acquiring bus operators in the region to run municipally-owned bus services could cost £200m, it added.
Franchising elements of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 are not yet enacted and “not expected to be until 2023 at the earliest”.
Cllr Millar said the administration was elected with “a commitment to explore opportunities for greater public control of our bus network”. There is “political desire” to explore models such as “franchising and publicly-run options”, he added.
“It is clear that this will take time and cannot happen overnight,” Cllr Millar said, adding the seven-year estimate is “based on the experience of Manchester’s journey”. “Though it should be noted that a different legislative and local transport framework exists there.
“Clearly we would want business case processes to progress as quickly as practical and would be looking to advocate for early publication of all the relevant transport act regulations and for funding to progress the business case development.
“But it is also imperative that the council follows due legal process and proceeds carefully to get this right.”
The transport convener said the council “can’t simply sit on our hands while that work continues” and needs to “see improvements to our bus network in the short term”.
It is engaging with bus firms through the Glasgow Bus Partnership to “explore a time-limited statutory partnership to lock in commitments for bus service improvements in the short to medium term”.
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