Fare Increase for Disabled Passholders

Lancashire County Council has announced an increase in the fare payable by holders of concessionary pass buses for travel before 09.30 on Mondays to Fridays

The current concessionary fare of 50p will increase to £1 from Monday, 3rd December.

The concession available to disabled passholders will then be:

• English National Concession: free off peak travel (between 9.30am and 11.00pm Monday to Friday, all day Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays) on local bus services throughout England
• From 3rd December 2018 - £1 flat fare per journey on local bus services which start, end or are wholly within Lancashire (includes Blackburn with Darwen and Blackpool) before 09:30 Monday to Friday.

The council consulted on this move in early 2018 and the results of the consultation were published in June.

Roughly half of respondents objected to the increase, with the other fifty-per-cent either supporting it or having no view either way.  The majority of travel before 09.30 was for medical appointments, followed by leisure, shopping, education and work, but only 4% of passengers thought that the increase would make their journey unaffordable.

Although a 100% increase might be considered steep, a major consideration was the ability of passengers to continue to be able to pay for their ticket with a single coin and 38% of respondents said that this was the case.  The 50+Assembly and several parish councils stated that they had no objection to the increase.

The Bus Users' Group also did not object to the move. The Council's financial position is well known and there appears to be no prospect a change to that in the foreseeable future. The 50p fare has been in place for some considerable time over a period when other bus fares have risen more sharply than inflation and we agree that for many passholders the ability to pay using only one coin is important.

Improved Access to the Bus Station

Regular users of Lancaster bus station will have noticed the steady deterioration in the condition of the pavement in Damside Street near the bus station entrance and, especially, the pedestrian crossing that gives safe access across Wood Street for passengers approaching from the city centre along Damside Street.

The Wood Street crossing. 

BUG member Mel Guilding, a city councillor and regular bus passenger from Carnforth first raised the issue, but as highways and crossings are a County Council responsibility is was another BUG member, County Councillor Gina Dowding that brought the matter to the attention of highways chiefs and asked for remedial action to be taken after supplying them with the following evidence

The condition of the pavement.

The pedestrian crossing

Now, following a visit from the council's highways inspector, an official order has been placed and work is expected to begin "in the next two weeks".

Bus Station Doors

Meanwhile, another BUG member, Councillor Abi Mills, has been chasing up the problems with the doors in the bus station that are stuck in the "open" position - except for the fire exit doors, which are jammed shut!  Again there is good news to report. A new, local, contractor has been appointed and work to repair the doors is due to start soon. We will, naturally, be monitoring the situation.

Lancaster Bus Users' Group is privileged to have a number of City and County Councillors amongst its membership and happy that they come from all sides of the political spectrum in the city. The Group is not ashamed to use this influence - and not above a bit of "insider dealing" -  in its task of improving bus services and the lot of bus passengers throughout the District.

New Bus Stop for Bare Lane

Since Stagecoach withdrew service 4 from Bare Lane in October the lower part of that road has been served only by Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire's 33, the "Bare Circular" operated under contract to Lancashire County Council.

The new stop on Lonsdale Road near the junction with Bare Lane

The 33 maintains a link to Princes Crescent, Morecambe Promenade and Morecambe Bus Station from most of Bare Lane but leaves the stop on Hall Drive unserved.  The service turns onto Bare Lane from Lonsdale Road, no more than a few metres from the Hall Drive stop and provides a useful alternative. The Bus Users' Group was happy to suggest that former users of the 4 at Hall Drive could instead use the 33, but realised that with that bus serving Strickland Drive and Lonsdale Road on a "hail & ride" basis passengers used to the certainty of a marked bus stop might be unhappy at the prospect of waiting at the side of the road for the 33 and in the absence of a timetable display would not know when the service ran.

The new stop has a timetable display and the council
minimised costs by using an existing traffic pole.

The Group felt that despite the hail & ride facility a marked bus stop was required as close to the now unserved Hall Drive stop as possible and following our approach Lancashire County Council has been happy to provide one.

A marked bus stop was erected within a few days of our request, initially on a temporary basis to assess suitability of the site. Despite LCC's stated policy of not increasing the number of timetable displays provided, a display case has been positioned at the stop after we suggested that it could be considered a replacement for that at Hall Drive, which is no longer required.

The BUG hopes that former users of the Hall Drive stop will now make more use of service 33 from the new stop on Lonsdale Road and that this will increase passenger numbers and secure the future of the service.

A notice at Hall Drive
directs passengers to
the new stop and service 33