One Voice was involved along with many disabled people, in putting forward suggestions to make the new bus station less of a barrier for disabled people.

The project was called The Interchange Project – because it was supposed to enable passengers to easily change from bus to train to metro (if the Metro ever gets the funding to extend).

On the day the bus station opened, many passengers found that their bused no longer stopped at the bus station – there was no interchange at all – just a chaos of buses outside the Art Gallery. So now, many people have to go much further to get to the train station than before. Perhaps the project should have been called the ignoring-the-passengers project.

Not content with making this change, the bus company decided to changes the numbers and routes of most buses. There was a leaflet about these changes that came out 2 weeks before – so people had some notice. The leaflet though, was not called “changes to bus service” it was called “a fresh start”, so most bus users didn’t pick it up. The changes in number and service have been condusing to every passenger we have met on buses.

Now we have the passenger-unfriendly situation of more buses stopping or waiting in Lichfield street than there is room for. So some stop away from the bus stop, or change which end of the bus shelter they stop at, because of lack of space – this makes it much more difficult for blind and visually impaired and mobility impaired people to use the bus – it is also very stressful for all bus users. Sometimes, a bus will stop in the right place, and the driver will get out and passengers have to wait for a new driver.

This isn’t a fresh start, it is a fresh hell, and it seems to have been done without any consultation with passengers. It has made huge new barriers to using the bus service for many disabled people and others.

It is not the way to make sustainable change.

The Government announced yesterday that one of the things they will be looking at is abuse of Blue badge parking permits.
Disabled people have often commented that they seem to be used by non-disabled people, who take up spaces close to an entrance that they need, so this review should be welcomed.
It is especially important that they look at the whole system, since recently a man diagnosed as terminally ill was refused a blue badge. see the full story here>>

If you are like me and have to rely on public transport, then you would have probably found it difficult over the Christmas period. At no point did I see on buses or bus stops the Christmas timetables.

I ended up having to wait in the cold on Monday 3^rd January for 30 minutes waiting for a bus, as the service to get me home was on Sunday service for the 6^th time in 9 days. Now I didn’t see any signs up anywhere about services over the holidays, and what’s more when the bus turned up they wouldn’t accept my pass and I then had to pay the inflated prices for this year to get home.
This is obviously what you get for going to see a relative off at the train station (we got a taxi there). That is why I didn’t know about the reduced service until I was trying to get home again.
Also where is the travel information office, because I haven’t seen it anywhere or any signs for it.
With all the money they are spending on the new bus station they should have put up more signs.

Co-op travel have broken ahead of the field of travel companys by being the first high street travel firm to provide a custom service for disabled people.

Co-op Travel have trained staff from 40 branches on the access needs of disabled people who want to go on holiday, so that they can give accurate and relevant access information. Their travelshops will have specialist guides on airport access and facilities also. The aim is to roll out this expertise to all their branches.

You can find out whether a branch near you has this new service by contacting Co-op Travel:

0845 266 9228 or visit online: www.co-operativetravel.co.uk/specialist-travel.

This is my favourite story of the year so far, and I’m going to try to make it relate in some way to disabled people:

A woman in Plymouth wondered where her cat kept disappearing – at the same time every morning, he’d leave the house, and be gone for hours – he never came when called during this time, and his whereabouts remained a mystery, until it was revealed that he caught the bus into the city every morning, and home again before lunch.

Bus drivers reported that they made sure his seat was reserved so he wasn’t inconvenienced in his daily journey!

Cat on a bus

And how to make this relate to disabled people?
Well if bus drivers took care to see that we had a seat before driving off, it would not be nearly as difficult for disabled people with mobility difficulties to catch the bus.