Here is the News

Today’s newpapers on the Queen’s speech will probably mirror yesterday’s broadcasts. Tucked away on page seven will be the equivalent of a soundbite on the proposed Local Transport Bill. Unless it’s about local congestion charging, of course – then that’s ‘real’ news. The bit on buses will tell us that the government proposes to give local authorities more control.

Well, we all know that it’s a tad more complicated than that but it’s what the media feel we all need to hear. Rather sadly, it’s probably what thousands of passengers want to hear, too. We’ve said it before but the bus service is viewed as a public asset, not private enterprise.

We all have rather short memories when it comes to the cut-and-cut-again necessity of the 1970s and 1980s. Life in a regulated environment wasn’t a bed of roses; nor is it now.

For passengers the grass is always greener on the other side. But what the passenger needs is something radical – the urgent freeing of roadspace for buses. Perhaps this will come with congestion charging, patchy though it may be. Perhaps it won’t. But if and when roadspace *is* freed up, the passenger is less likely to care whether local authorities have more control, or not.