{"id":858,"date":"2012-12-18T13:41:06","date_gmt":"2012-12-18T13:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xislblogs.xtreamlab.net\/slwoods\/?p=858"},"modified":"2013-06-13T14:08:52","modified_gmt":"2013-06-13T14:08:52","slug":"bristol-bus-petition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/?p=858","title":{"rendered":"Bristol bus petition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Upon moving to Bristol from Wolverhampton many decades ago, the most striking immediate difference I can recall was that Bristol&#8217;s bus fares were double those of Wolverhampton and the service provided by the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bristol_Omnibus_Company\">Bristol Omnibus Company<\/a> was far more unreliable than that of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/West_Midlands_Passenger_Transport_Executive\">West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive<\/a> (WMPTE).<\/p>\n<p>Much has changed since those days: the Bristol Omnibus Company is now part of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firstgroup.com\/\">FirstGroup<\/a>, whilst the WMPTE has been rebranded as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.centro.org.uk\/\">Centro<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>What hasn&#8217;t changed over the decades is the exorbitant level of bus fares charged in Bristol and the unreliability of the bus service.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 320px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"image of a WorstBus vehicle\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bristolwireless.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/FirstBus.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"310\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Worst Bus: eye-watering fares, unreliable service.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Bristolian called Daniel Farr has now decided to challenge the high price and unreliable service provided by First Bus in Bristol by setting up a petition on the <a href=\"http:\/\/epetitions.direct.gov.uk\/petitions\/\">government&#8217;s e-petition site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The wording of the petition, with which I couldn&#8217;t disagree at all, reads as follows:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The prices of First groups [sic] bus tickets in Bristol and the quality of their service do not match up. Their fares are the most expensive outside of London, but yet their buses are unreliable and often late. Local government does nothing to improve the service or lower the prices so we call on the government to force First to reduce their charges.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/epetitions.direct.gov.uk\/petitions\/43134\">Sign the petition<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, frustrated bus users in the city have also set up their own website &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bristolbususers.co.uk\/\">http:\/\/www.bristolbususers.co.uk\/<\/a> &#8211; to campaign for better and cheaper bus services in the Bristol area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Upon moving to Bristol from Wolverhampton many decades ago, the most striking immediate difference I can recall was that Bristol&#8217;s bus fares were double those of Wolverhampton and the service provided by the Bristol Omnibus Company was far more unreliable than that of the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE). Much has changed since those [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,15],"tags":[40,20],"class_list":["post-858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bristol","category-politics","tag-bristol","tag-politics-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=858"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858\/revisions\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slwoods.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}