Reader’s letter: Tell bus companies what they can do better

MY letters to The Advertiser are a bit like the X1 buses: nothing for ages then two close together. 

Two weeks ago, Pauline Marsden kindly mentioned my recent letter about HS2. 

She suggested that all that money would be better spent updating existing lines. 

Hear, hear Margaret and, I would add, we should be improving bus services, too.

Instead, we not only get HS2 but Crossrail, Tram Train and the £30 million new road under the M1 into Meadowhall which carries the X1 and precious little else. 

These initiatives are not known as “vanity projects” for nothing. 

They are the stuff of big business people and politicians anxious to put themselves “on the map”. 

Margaret calls them “white elephants,” which is more like it. 

They share several characteristics: late starting, over budget, benefit very few people and are not part of an overall plan to improve public transport.

And now we’ve got the Bus Review commissioned by the Sheffield City Region (formerly known as South Yorkshire). 

“What can we do better?” the posters ask, which we’re supposed to answer in a very small space, while more is provided for lots of irrelevant questions.

Forms are available at bus stations or you can give your views online, and the closing date is this Friday, September 27.

I know lots of people who, like me, are fed up with the atrocious reliability of our buses — especially those operated by First, while the "vanity projects" swallow up the money. 

So please don’t just complain into your tea or alcoholic beverages: fill in the survey here and tell them what they can do better. 

You never know, if enough of us do we might improve things. If not, we're no worse off.

Rob Slow