Once again, the spectre of the “motorist” is haunting Westminster. The Conservatives’ narrow win in last month’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection has been pinned – perhaps somewhat speciously – on widespread alarm about the expansion of London’s ultra-low emission zone, and from that, all else follows. A move against 20mph speed limits and low-traffic neighbourhoods is now reportedly in the government’s sights. A huge chunk of the media, meanwhile, loudly speaks for parts of the population who are supposedly addicted to asphalt, petrol and zooming from A to B with as little obstruction as possible.
Amid all the resulting noise, a huge story about transport goes almost unnoticed: the ongoing decline of buses, and how poorly prepared for the future it leaves us. After nearly 40 years of deregulation and outsourcing, and nearly 15 years of the cuts and shortfalls imposed by Whitehall on local authorities, the mode of travel that still accounts for 69% of journeys by public transport is in an ever-worsening mess. The relevant statistics are stark, and sad: in 2002, for example, there were just over 18,000 numbered bus routes in England, but that number has since fallen to just under 11,000, with more cuts seemingly arriving every month. There are few symbols of the literal privatisation of everyday life more potent than unloved bus shelters adorned with emptying timetables, now such a fixed part of the average British streetscape that their fading away is taken pretty much for granted.
