Lancashire County Council staff have been out and about across Lancaster putting up new signs on the bus shelters reminding passengers to "keep your distance" whilst waiting for a bus.
The signs don't specify what that distance should be, although that is probably wise given the dithering by our ever-indecisive government over whether that should be 2 metres, 1 metre or something else entirely.
There are also new signs reminding us to plan ahead, to wear a face covering, maintain our distance on the bus and a whole host of other things, including of course to "wash our hands".
All sound advice, no doubt and obviously intended as something we should take seriously. What we should not take seriously, at least in the example above, is the departure list next to it, which is seriously misleading.
The council's timetable displays were not amended during the period of service changes immediately following lockdown on 23rd March and have continued to show the times that were current at that date. Most services returned to normal levels on 1st June rendering the displays correct again (give or take the odd "University Terms Only" journeys not actually running), but services 7 (Vale) 49 (Warton), 55 (Carnforth) 80 (Ingleton) and 81 (Kirkby Lonsdale) did not revert to pre-lockdown times and have had completely different timetables introduced, deferred from April. Some other services have had more minor changes.
When BUG asked the council back in May why the timetables were out of date we were told that the members of staff whose job it was to update them had been re-deployed to other duties due to the COVID-19 emergency. The other staff who prepared the new timetables were working from home and could not access the specialst equipment needed.
It now appears that some staff can be spared to update bus shelters with health advice, but if the staff that produce new timetables still cannot do their job surely it should be possible for someone - anyone - to produce a simple notice warning passengers that the displays are incorrect, which could be inserted at the same time as the other posters are put up?
The council also told us that it didn't want to be seen to encourage people to use public transport at this time, which was another reason for not updating the cases. We see a correct list of departures at bus stops not as a means of "promotion" but as the provision of basic information aimed as helping those needing to make essential journeys to make sure they catch their bus. Even if it's not possible to produce an updated display, surely a notice drawing attention to that fact could have been placed in the relevant cases?
Making timetable information available - in all formats - is a condition of receiving the government's £1 per kilometre support grant, which is keeping services running, but it seems that the division of responsibility for information between the operators and the council means that the requirement is not being met.
