Petition - Bin the Bus Box – we demand a proper bus station - Visit GoPetition to sign here
Petition: the Bus Box is a failure – give Cardiff a full-sized modern bus station
Petition: the Bus Box is a failure – give Cardiff a full-sized modern bus station
We condemn Cardiff council plans to replace the bus station with an 'integrated transport hub' within the next two years and leave us with an undersized Bus Station in Central Square. Meanwhile, the Bus Box has worsened conditions for bus users waiting and transferring buses, and doesn't work on event days and evenings. We demand a full-sized bus station not a “transport hub”, with covered waiting and information facilities, covered link to the train station, modern standard seating, toilets and cafe, that functions 24/7. Cardiff council's failures show we need genuine consultation on designs for the new station.Cardiff Councils plans to replace the bus station with an integrated transport hub within the next two years after residents telling them they wanted a new modern bus station.
Sustainable Travel City funds should be suspended until Cardiff Council agrees to give proper space and priority to a central bus station. The plans for a massive Central Business District should be delayed pending the LDP or called in for a special public inquiry, on account of their impact on inadequate public transport services, increased demands on travel and implications for high carbon and ecological footprints.
We oppose Cardiff bus station being be replaced by an “integrated transport hub” We want a modern bus station providing a covered enclosed link between the train station and the bus stands to include facilities such as comfortable seating, clear reliable information about bus times, cafes, shops, toilets and cycle parking. |
Views on the Bus Box were wanted in their questionnaire, the Council said last March. Yet it contained no question, nor even a mention of the Bus Box.
Officers are surely aware of the widespread complaints from bus users, especially over the shutdown of routes on Saturday event days, so isn't that why the questionnaire was rigged to exclude Bus Box issues?
Their statistics on 'reasonable satisfaction' come from their online questionnaire, dominated by infrequent users. They chose not to distribute questionnaires on the buses themselves, doubtless because those would target the 'hard to reach' people dependent on buses who have less access to the internet. Councillors like Monica Walsh and Jon Aylwin have argued the issue in Committee, the former condemning the Bus Box and the latter calling it “fantastic”. Yet they should be insisting on genuine consultation – of bus users and also bus drivers, who well know the annoyance of passengers.
They should ask too how many people have been deterred from travel into the city during event days, when the Bus Box is effectively abandoned. What about the Echo spotlighting the issue?
The supposed consultation on a new bus station and bus service in central Cardiff ignored a key issue – that services and connections to Central Station must work on match and event days.
Bus users are dropped north and east of the centre when half of the infamous Bus Box is closed down. Those wanting a mainline train have to walk about kilometre, laden with bagage.
What other city lets cars through while closing half its city centre to buses? Sustainable transport means priority to buses, cyclists and pedestrians, so why don't our politicians condemn Cardiff's pretensions to “sustainable” travel?
Executive Member, Cllr Delme Bowen, set his priorities for a new bus station as giving space to taxis and to cars dropping off people for trains. Yet cars could link to trains from the rear of the station, leaving proper priority for pedestrians and buses, which includes the masses of rugby fans on match days.
The absolute priority for the new bus station is that it can function fully on event days. Not only must the west end of Wood Street remain open for buses as well as a route out to Custom House Street, but also one or two overpasses be built for pedestrians. Overpasses suggest a two-storey development.
We've suffered from officers forcing through the botched Bus Box etc. Now Berman has decreed the bus station will be replaced by an “integrated transport hub”, because they want to keep the Central Square bus station small to maximise building there. He makes a nonsense of claims to a “sustainable travel city”.
Let's see some genuine public participation this time, in planning the new bus station!
