Are we Ready Yet?

Public transport is well up the political agenda in Swansea, Wales. That’s where First intends to launch its third Streetcar ftr service. The local council is doing everything it can to ease what opponents call its “pet scheme”. Among other work, it’s completely demolished a roundabout and converting a major through route into a one way street.

But the Swansea Metro has its detractors – plenty of them, it seems. Traders along the route worry about loss of business; residents voice concern at the constant road works; motorists are troubled by the promised reduction in road space; and some claim that the bendy bus ftr streetcars will have difficulty in negotiating Mumbles and two hospitals en route.

Now, a couple of political bloggers have added their concerns. In a parody of the 1951 Marlon Brandon film, one labels the Swansea Metro as a “Streetcar Named Disaster”. Another mimics On the Buses with On the Bendy Buses, starring local "heroes" as Butler and Blakey. A third suggests that the venture will simply lose money.

The press has also taken up the cudgels. It reports that Swansea’s civic society claims the ftr-associated roadwork have converted the “hole-strewn city centre” into a "filthy dirty" mess.

The press also reported incidents on articulated buses elsewhere – the somewhat historic fires on London’s Citaros (peculiar to the type and now corrected), and an artic that crashed into a Leeds shop, in an incident that was unrelated to the bus’ length or size.

Curiously, the Welsh paper failed to report on York’s ftr problems.

In spite of Stern; in spite of the Commons’ transport committee’s views; in spite of the Queen’s speech, are we yet ready for grand bus-type public transport schemes in Britain? But if we aren’t, what else is there, what other options, to halt the exponential rise in car-based carbon emissions? Swansea illustrates the uphill struggle the bus industry faces in promoting the bus to a higher plane.