Day 17 - A Local Bus for Local People

Manchester to Glossop

When Ken Livingstone was elected Mayor of London in 2000, he promised to introduce a congestion charge to ensure that drivers wishing to drive through Central London paid for the privilege of doing so. It was a highly contentious step, but its eventual introduction in February 2003 had three basic effects – it reduced traffic in London's congested city streets, though not by as much as had been hoped, it reduced journey times, and it raised revenue to spend on public transport improvements. Other metropolitan authorities viewed London's experience with interest. Could a congestion charge be an effective solution to their own congestion problems?

The first to test the water was Durham who introduced a scheme in 2002 covering basically one street, then in 2008 Manchester weighed in with a proposal for a congestion zone ten times the size of London's covering the whole of the Greater Manchester urban area, with a further cordon within the city centre. But whereas Ken Livingstone had the legal powers to introduce a congestion charge himself, elsewhere a scheme had to be voted for in a referendum and only if a clear majority was obtained could the scheme go ahead.

The government promised Manchester more than £3bn for public transport improvements if the referendum went in its favour, enough to extend Metrolink trams to Manchester Airport, Didsbury, Oldham and Rochdale, and create a completely new second line. A bus rapid transit system was also proposed, no less than 30 stations would be upgraded, and a smart card similar to London's Oyster card would be introduced.

But anti-congestion charge campaign groups quickly sprang up and began to fiercely contest the proposal. A 'Stop the Charge Coalition' was formed made up of an alliance of seven local MPs and the leaders of three local councils which opposed the plans. Large swathes of the public was against it, they said. Businesses were against it. Nobody wanted to have to pay for the right to drive their cars down certain streets. 

One group even attempted to force an election to install a directly elected Mayor in Bury who would then withdraw the town completely from the whole scheme. The Labour-controlled Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive, which had members representing the ten local authorities in the Greater Manchester area and had originally proposed the congestion charge, discovered it was by no means speaking with one voice. 

The Congestion Charge certainly made the news

When it came to the referendum in December 2008, not one of the ten Council areas voted in favour. More than half of those eligible to vote had done so, and they had voted 'no thanks' at a rate of almost four to one. It must have been the final indignity for the PTE's ex-chairman Roger Jones, who had already paid the price for being on the wrong side of the argument at that spring's local council elections when he lost his seat on the council – and therefore the PTE - to the Community Action Party who were campaigning against the charge.

Manchester's was a bold proposal, but the runes were there to be read. Edinburgh had proposed a similar scheme in 2005 and lost. The motoring lobby in all cases was a powerful one and opposing it was difficult when, according to the RAC Foundation, only half of the population have ever used a bus and less than 20% use one regularly.

Two years prior to the Manchester 'no' vote, the government were already aware that bus usage across the English regions was in decline. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee reported a 7% drop in passenger numbers during the first half of the decade, hardly the best background against which to launch a scheme penalising motorists in favour of public transport. Ironically, the only place which did show an increase in public transport usage – and a substantial one at that – was the home of the congestion charge, London.

So today's streets of Manchester continue to be thronged by both buses and cars, and congestion continues to rule. Fortunately, I don't have far to go today so I decide to use my spare time to renew my acquaintance with Manchester’s splendid Museum of Transport. This is housed in one end of a vast Grade 2 listed bus depot in Cheetham Hill which currently provides workshop and storage facilities of fairly heroic proportions for First Group, a company which runs many of the city’s services and who clearly have an awful lot of buses.

Manchester Museum of Transport 

The transport museum is tucked into the top end of this building and contains dozens of restored buses and coaches, trams, trolleybuses and much else besides. The place oozes atmosphere; there are clever recreations of the back offices of a typical post-war transport company, their cafe has an authentic 'works canteen' feel and there's an interesting and well-stocked shop. Even the gent's urinals are straight out of the 1920's.

As ever, it is the volunteers who are the backbone of the organisation, volunteers like Ron Barton who I find patrolling the museum and answering visitors’ questions. Ron, I discover, had spent virtually his whole working life on the buses, first as a conductor and then as a driver. I ask him if he felt a driver's lot had changed much in that time.

“It is different now,” he concedes. “When I started, you could have a little five foot nowt conductor on the back in the middle of the night and he'd never feel threatened. There was hardly ever any trouble then.

“You see, most of our passengers were people on their way to work, shift workers and that, and over time you'd get to know them. If any of them caused you any trouble they knew they'd be off, and that would make getting to work difficult. So because we knew them, they'd hardly ever misbehave.

Early buses, and trams too

“I was driving for forty years and I hardly ever saw any trouble. Mind, at the end I was glad of the plexiglas screens the buses have to protect the driver. I had cause to be grateful for them on one or two occasions.”

Ron reckons the city's traffic is a problem, too.

“Driving a bus was different in the 1960's. For a start, there weren't as many parked cars. Now, they can really cause problems for a driver. “

What was the biggest single change he saw in his long career, I ask.

“Oh, that's easy - the introduction of One Man Operation. There'd always been some OMO on shorter routes, and only with single deckers, but in 1967 there was a change in the law and they started to come in a lot more. The bus companies liked them because they saved on staff. That's when double-door buses first appeared, too, and periscopes so that the driver could see upstairs.”

Not just buses to explore...

I could have happily continued chatting, but I've monopolised Ron for too long already and clearly he has other visitors to take care of. I overhear him a few minutes later in the main hall.

“Where are you all from,” he asks one family. “Oldham? Well, this bus over here was one that your grandad might have travelled on...”

Before taking my leave, I fall into conversation with Dave Thomas who is helping out in the shop and who agreed to look after my rucksac while I took a look around. It seems the right time to tell someone that I am travelling from Land's End to John O'Groats by local public transport – a tricky one this, as I've found many people tend to just smile and back away slowly. Dave's reaction, however, was quite different.

“Really?' he exclaimed. “That's fantastic!”

Chatting with the volunteers

I turns out that Dave had worked in public transport as a planner and part of his job had been to contribute to a huge national bus timetable which was produced each year listing every single bus service in the country. The publishers also ran a competition for people working in the industry to plan the fastest possible route from John O'Groats to Land's End using the timetables published in that year's publication. Dave had entered this competition and had come third nationally, something he was clearly proud of - so he was delighted to find someone who was actually now doing it for real.

We chat, shake hands, take photographs of one another and I say a reluctant goodbye to the growing band of volunteers who seem to have gravitated to the shop. 

I am soon back on Cheetham Hill Road where I pick up a bendy bus for the trip back to the city centre. These are much maligned vehicles. Cyclists hate them, drivers hate them, some London Mayor’s hate them. Personally, I rather like them, not least for the fact that they carry their engine at the very back in the trailer section which I simply can't get my head around that. I mean... how does that even work? It’s like a car towing a caravan but with its engine under the bed in the caravan…

Bendy bus back to the city centre 

Back at Piccadilly Gardens I grab a quick sandwich and a swish new double decker for the short journey to Hyde. After my chat with Ron I find I'm taking a little more interest in the driver behind his toughened plexiglas screen. Though largely protected from random physical assault by a passenger, it is still clearly a potentially scary job at times. 

And not just in Manchester. In Australia, for example, the Transport Workers Union once called for all bus drivers to be given self-defence training after an irate cyclist attacked a 64-year-old driver in New South Wales. The cyclist had been illegally using a bus-only lane and had been beeped by the driver for doing so, so he responded by smashing the bus driver's mirror, then climbing on board at the next stop and physically attacking the driver. Thankfully his protective screen withstood the attack.

Things can be even worse in America, where drivers are frequently robbed at gunpoint and knifepoint. Yet the poor guy at the front can also be a major part in making someone's day. 

Not strictly uniform, but hey... Pic: Dan Fairchild

In Toronto, for example, a woman was moved to write to her local paper about a fellow passenger called Jason who had Down's Syndrome. One day, the driver announced over his bus loudspeaker system that it happened to be Jason's birthday and that he wanted to ride in a space ship. So when the bus entered a tunnel, the driver began to pick up speed and announced that they were reaching warp speed, with Jason laughing and having the time of his life. Apparently, a few days later Jason reciprocated by presenting the driver with a thank you card he had bought and which he'd got everyone on the bus to sign.

In New York, a driver given to playing word games with his passengers over the intercom asked one day if it was anyone's birthday - and when someone piped up, led the whole bus in a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. He then urged everyone to look outside their window and smile at passing strangers. "Let’s look alive people, we only live once” he explained. “Tomorrow's not promised."

Why can't we have more drivers like that?

Some, however, have been known to take matters into their own hands a little too much. One driver from Springfield, Illinois, for example, was suspended from duty for not wearing the correct uniform after he chose to wear a pink tie in support of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Seems a tad petty, that. Not so the case of the bus driver in Atlanta, Georgia who was suspended after he insisted that all his passengers hold hands while he personally led them in five long minutes of prayer.

Buses can be a place for prayers... pic: Guy

It probably wasn't the Bible that one bus driver in the West Midlands was spotted reading while driving his bus at speed along a dual carriageway and steering with his elbows. He also clearly didn't expect to be filmed doing so by one of his passengers. Unfortunately for him, the passenger then helpfully uploaded the footage to YouTube and thereafter brought it to the bus company's attention. Needless to say, the company was not in the least amused. His employers later threw the book at him, and not the one he'd just been filmed reading.

With their passengers' lives entirely in their care, bus drivers tend not tp make many mistakes like this, but that doesn't stop them from becoming ill at the wheel. I heard about one school bus driver in Illinois who became ill while driving and hurriedly leant across to his door so he could open it a little and throw up outside. Unfortunately, and you just knew there was going to be an 'unfortunately', he misjudged both his vomiting and the door and ended up throwing himself out of the bus which was then left to career driverless down the road. Everyone survived the resulting crash, though how many survived the resulting law suits is not known.

I am therefore trying to work out what my driver is - an entertainer? A martial arts expert? A lay preacher? A puker?

Well, my driver turns out to be Polish which is no big deal, but him using his mobile phone whilst driving certainly is. As we approach the bus depot on Hyde Road I see him making long phone calls in Polish, presumably to tell his missus that he's coming off shift and to get the tea on. I am so astonished that I don't think to complain, but that evening I knock off an email to Stagecoach and receive a highly apologetic reply from a clearly mortified Customer Services Manager who assures me that the matter would absolutely not be resting there.

Hyde bus station

At Hyde I change for a small local bus operated by a small local bus company, Speedwellbus of Hyde, for the final part of today's journey to Glossop. I become childishly excited to discover that the route takes us through some lovely old North Country-sounding place names like Hattersley, Glossopdale and Broadbottom, the last one sounding like the sort of affliction I can probably expect to be suffering from by the time I reach John O’Groats.

Flat urban Manchester gives way surprisingly quickly to hill and moorland. One minute we are pootling along through Manchester 's suburbs, the next we are in the middle of a 1940's film production of Wuthering Heights, except it's all in colour of course.

Actually, it's all rather emotional. After travelling across the busy Cheshire Plain and the city streets of West Lancashire, I hadn't realised just how much I'd missed the hills. Now they were rising up all around me and I was so happy I almost burst into song. It is an exhilarating ride, with the road plunging recklessly down into a deep wooded dale one minute, then breathlessly up the other side a minute later, then down again, then up once more, and so on. 

At one point, I swore I recognised the village we were passing through, although I know I have never been here before. This peculiar sense of recognition persisted until it finally came to me – of course, I have seen it before. This is Hadfield, the village used in the TV comedy series 'The League of Gentlemen' and therefore more familiar as its alter ego Royston Vasey. I feel like opening a window and yelling “Oi, are you local?” to a lady out shopping with a pushchair, but it would be fairly pointless as clearly she is and I have a feeling she might just have heard that one before.

Rain-washed Glossop

And so we arrive in Glossop, down a hill (obviously) and past a duck pond with a sign next to it which says 'Glossop Swimming Pool', which has me wondering what the ducks think of sharing their pond with a classful of Year 7's three times a week.

Glossop is like many small towns sitting in the shadows of hills or high moors. There is a sort of rain-washed freshness about them, a tang of peat in the air, things seem more brightly coloured somehow. I've noticed this about villages in the Scottish Highlands and it seems the same here. I amble through Glossop's quiet streets of pale gritstone topped with blue-grey slate, and with hills all around, until I realise that on top of one such hill is my guest house for the night. 

Looks like it’s time for a walk, then…

NEXT: Glossop – Bradford – where I snake across the Peak District, try (and fail) to visit an Elephant's graveyard, and join a throng of elderly people looking for Nora Batty.

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Map courtesy of those awfully nice people at Google