Some park and ride sites to operate free service on Boxing Day
Labour Councillors have announced that they will be considering reducing subsidised bus services in the City at a meeting which will be held on 11th December.
Labour were criticised during the recent Westfield by election for keeping secret their plans to reduce services like the number 13A which serves the Hamilton Drive area.
There has so far been no consultation on the proposals which will seek to reduce the annual £800,000 spend by the Council on sustaining off peak bus services and those to remoter parts of the City.
The latest crisis reflects problems which started to develop when Labour took control of the Council in 2011.
They concentrated their efforts on scrapping the popular (with passengers) ftr service but failed to put anything in its place. Routes were chopped and changed with stability only achieved during the last 12 months.
Now even that seems to be under threat.
Bus service usage peaked at 12 million passenger journeys with the introduction of the ftr in 2006 before declining last year to 10.4 million.
Overall bus usage has held up with a gradual increase in the numbers using Park and Ride services which themselves peaked last year at 4.4 million.
Further increases are expected this year with the opening of the larger Askham Bar site and the new service from Poppleton Bar.
NB. The Council has announced it’s Christmas Park and Ride services.
A late night shopping service on all six Park&Ride routes will operate every Thursday, with the last bus leaving the city centre on all routes at around 9.30pm (for exact timings visit http://www.itravelyork.info/).
The first extended service will run from the 20 November ahead of the biggest Christmas market in York’s calendar – St Nicholas Fair starting on 27 November.
In addition to this, passengers will also be able to take advantage again of the, now traditional, FREE travel on Boxing Day on the three key P&R routes which will be operating.
Three Park & Ride services will operate on Boxing Day:
- Askham Bar (white line – route 3) – First bus at 7am from the site, last bus back from Tower Street at 6.42pm
- Designer Outlet (red line – route 7) – First bus at 7am from the site, last bus back from Rougier Street at 6.40pm
- Monks Cross (silver line – route 9) – First bus at 7am from the site, last bus back from Rougier Street at 6.43pm
All three services will operate at a 15 minute frequency throughout the day and will be FREE for all passengers (and will stop at all usual stops along the route).
To find out more about the offer or to find the best bus route through York, try out the council’s new i-Travel York online Journey Planner at http://www.itravelyork.info/