The Color Purple

Know anyone who wants to buy a dozen five-year-old Wright Streetcar articulated buses?

We like to think that in a deregulated provincial environment, bus services are free from political control. It’s tendered rather than commercial services that are influenced by the political will.

The recent local elections changed the political landscape in the city of York. In shades of Boris v Ken one of the central planks of the victor’s campaign was to “get rid of the FTR purple buses”. It doesn’t matter the hue of the successor (though I have to say that it wasn’t purple). The point I am making is that politics will inevitably play its part in bus service provision, in spite of what we might think or perhaps even hope. Buses are viewed as a public asset. More people see them as a public service than, since deregulation, what they are: a service for the public (to borrow a pithy statement from a comment of several weeks back).

But whereas operators can ride out the political repercussions of service cuts or even fares increases, it’s more uncomfortable when politicians begin calling for changes in vehicle types. This is rare but acceding has significant financial consequences. In this case, a considerable investment and the problematic cascading of 18.5m artics.

If you think politics and commercial services shouldn’t mix, York’s victor is only stating what a good proportion of the population feel: that the FTR actually hinders rather than helps. Admittedly, either that’s from a car- centric view or it ignores some of the positives about FTR. But FTR was supposed to be the future of public transport (hence its text-speak name) whereas many in York, the majority no doubt (and even a slice of bus users) shows antipathy towards it. It helps none that FTR finds its way onto public roads rather than dedicated “track”.

The last time I spoke with anyone from First on this, they felt that ridership increases were good but not quite that for which they’d hoped. After the early ticketing debacle First has double crewed all its York FTRs, at considerable additional cost. Since 2009, First began replacing FTRs with conventional rigids in the evenings and on Sundays and has now even substituted on weekday mornings. It may even be that First will look at the new politics as a face-saving way of extracting itself from FTR.

Whereas York’s ground breaking FTR partnership will end next month, this still doesn’t actually mean that York will be rid of its super-wide, super-long artics. It’s in no one’s political gift to see off particular buses on a commercial service, even for those with the benefit of a considerable swing and majority. And since the £1.5mil spent on easing FTR through York’s streets is a lasting legacy, there’s no reason commercially why First should simply pull FTR.

But if noises for their withdrawal grow, who knows what might replace FTR. How about the bottom end of First’s cascade programme, for instance?

The irony is that in 2011, York celebrates the 10th year of an overnight, 86-vehicle injection into the city (in 2001/2). That’s an almost unprecedented level of investment by First . Since then, with its ups and downs, York has largely been a public transport success, much to the envy of First’s managers from elsewhere in the country. Now, those managers, particularly at the recently restructured First north region, will have a less enviable task of deciding exactly what to do. Keep an eye on the “vehicles for sale” classifieds of the York Press.