Friday, 6 July 2012

SYPTE : South Yorkshire Positive Transport Expenditure?

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Feedback : See "Tom Treddlehoyle and Progress at Pogmoor [2]" (read again). Commentator "poggysteve" thought that a company called Denny's Coaches had once progressed to Pogmoor, operating as service 341. Here is a picture of said vehicle rotting away in Carlton's scrapyard. 
More information would be gratefully accepted!
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Back to today's blog ....

It's Really Good News for Sheffield!

Isn't it?
Some of England's biggest cities outside of London are to be given significant extra powers and money. This is in return for promises to bring down youth unemployment and speed up regeneration and economic growth. The six "city deals" are for Newcastle, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Nottingham and Sheffield, with deals for Liverpool and Manchester already agreed.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg called them "groundbreaking deals... freeing cities from Whitehall control. Everyone in these eight core cities will feel the benefits - from young people looking for jobs, to businesses looking to expand."

At the moment councils running England's major cities have to lobby central government if they want extra money to invest in a major transport scheme or regeneration project. It can take years to get a decision. Under these new city deals, guaranteed funding is being provided for the city authorities to spend as they choose.

But in return, the cities have had to sign up to a series of promises. Sheffield will get extra money in return for a promise to create 4,000 apprenticeships.
It looks as if some of this money will go towards implementing the proposals for Public Transport improvement in the city.

Leaflets outlining the "Partnership" proposals dropped through fbb's letterbox yesterday. Regular blog readers will remember Optio Orange and Option Red, chummy agreements between Stagecoach and First to integrate timetables, publicity and some fares on selected routes.
fbb was told personally by David Brown, Director General of the PTE, that the proposal was to implement a city-wide scheme in the autumn of 2012.

fbb was less than certain about the whole thing ...
... but various so-called "Government" funding decisions mean that the whole "Partnership" project looks likely to happen. "So-called" because we need to remember that there is no such thing as "government money"; it's OUR money Mr Cleggeron is giving away!

From a political point of view, these schemes suggest that the government has finally abandoned the idea of London-style contract deals imposed on the operators in favour of voluntary "partnership" agreements such as that outlined in the Sheffield leaflets.

Sheffield Bus Partnership comprises First Group, Stagecoach, TM Travel, Sheffield City Council, Sheffield Community Transport and South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, who are working together to improve bus services in the city.

The Partnership’s goals are for bus travel to become people’s preferred choice of transport and maximise the positive effect of the bus on the environment. To achieve this, the Partnership aims to offer quality, reliable, convenient, and accessible services with value for money fares.

The Partnership has developed the proposed new network shown on this website to improve the co-ordination of services, and is inviting you to let us have your opinions during a consultation period from Monday 18 June to Friday 14 July 2012.

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One result of this "partnership" will be a proper series of all operator network tickets which (for the first time) will include the tram at no extra cost.
Another innovative proposal (for Sheffield at least) is the "Citywide60" idea. As yet no price is quoted, but the idea is that this will enable you to change buses with a gap of up to one hour for one through fare. Go into the centre, do a few errands, then continue to Aunt Aggie's for tea; all at a cheaper price than two singles - we hope!

Next week, we will look at the proposed scheme in a little more detail. But to whet our readers appetites, it would appear that these leaflets offer a quality of information provision that has not been seen for years in Sheffield.
There are even maps that you can understand! They use colour and have road names on them!
Now there's a revolutionary idea. So much better than the, frankly, useless offerings in the current route leaflets.

So here are some questions in anticipation of next week's blog(s)

Will there still be wall-to-wall buses along the Ecclesall Road?
Will there still be two service 52s via different routes?
Will there still be a 25 and a 25A following exactly the same route?
Has the PTE worked out, at last, where Fulwood is?
Where, in Sheffield, is Brents Green?
Why are services 43/43A/44/44A due to follow such a strange route?
Why are the Sheffield authorities renumbering City Road and Mansfield Road from A6135 to A616? Have they told the Department of Transport?
Plenty to look forward to next week!

 Next Blog: Saturday 7th July 

3 comments:

  1. City Road used to be the A616 until about 20 years ago. They must be using an old map!

    The major issue, as far as the local press's letter columns indicate, seems to be the withdrawal of service 3 which leaves Psalter Lane busless. A far cry from the days of the 61/63 etc before 1970.

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  2. Indeed, I had spotted that. The A616 is typical of the danger of subcontracting the map to e.g. FWT who work only from registration information and, as you rightly say, old data. I have never really understood why an organisation as big and "wealthy" as SYPTE can't manage to employ someone to draw maps who knows where the buses go.

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  3. And the biggest question: 'is it robust to defection? "

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