Protest group unconvinced by BRT data
The hotly-debated Bus Rapid Transit scheme comes before planning councillors at a meeting next Wednesday - with transport officials insisting it is the best option for cutting congestion between Newbridge and the city centre.
A decision was deferred by Bath and North East Somerset Council's development control committee in May so that officers could come up with more information about the savings in travel time the BRT might bring.
In fact, there appears to be little new information in the report to the committee, and the Response2route anti-BRT pressure group says it "has not seen any further evidence to support claims about the supposed benefits of the BRT."
The report argues that:
* the BRT route along a former railway track through Newbridge would mean bus journeys between Newbridge park and ride and Windsor Bridge Road would take six minutes, no matter what time of day
* this would knock anything between seven and 12 minutes off the journey time on existing roads at peak periods
* the extension to Newbridge park and ride would reduce morning commuter traffic along Newbridge and Upper Bristol roads by nearly a fifth
* creating a new bus lane along Newbridge Road would involve the demolition of 14 homes and virtually double the cost of the scheme
* creating a new lane on Lower Bristol Road would involve the loss of 260 parking spaces - compared to the 54 which will go under the current BRT scheme - and cost £11.67 million, compared to the £9 million planned route in that part of Bath.
The total cost of the BRT - which would take buses from Newbridge through the city centre and on to a new park and ride site at Bathampton - has been put at £16 million.
Transport officers say the time saved by the BRT will "increase over time" as traffic levels grow over the next few years.
But Response2route spokeswoman Jo McCarron said: "Our view still remains that there has not been adequate research and that communication has been appalling.
"Response2route requested through the Freedom of Information Act all of the studies which showed the former railway would be the most effective choice of route. The only information we have received amounts to a couple of A4 printouts. The council are unable to provide any further information to show how the quoted figures were reached.
"Our group believes the BRT will have a massive negative impact on our community and this is totally unjustified by the very minimal benefits the council claims the scheme will provide.
"To date, the proposal has only been examined internally. An independent scrutiny is crucial to ensure that the procedures have been handled in a fair and transparent way.
"The council have demonstrated a complete failure to answer their own questions resulting from the last planning meeting."
The meeting will take place in the Guildhall's council chamber at 2pm, with the proceedings filmed and transmitted to a video screen in a ground floor room.
Opponents of the BRT and the equally contentious Bathampton Meadows park and ride plan complained at this arrangement at May's meeting.
But the council says a room large enough to accommodate large numbers of members of the public had been booked for another event as along ago as November.
The council's transport projections have been challenged by opponents.
Retired civil servant Sydney Fremantle, from Batheaston, says figures submitted by the council to win nearly £50 million of funding for the Bath Transportation Package in 2006, fly in the face of reason.
He says the time scheduled to be taken by BRT buses using the conventional bus lane on the other side of the city centre in London Road takes no account of other traffic such as taxis, other buses and cyclists.
"In effect the BRT is expected to fly or hop over other vehicles."
And he says the figures for the Newbridge section - which are different to the more recent ones produced by B&NES - show benefits of less than a second.
A spokesman for B&NES's transport department said: "The award of programme entry and the offer of Government funding for the Bath Transportation Package was based upon the business case. The Department for Transport has approved funding in principle for the Bath Transportation Package on this basis."
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