Princes Street fire: Edinburgh bus users call for some of Scottish Government support to be spent improving bus services
Edinburgh Bus Users Group has issued a second open letter to the city council
Bus campaigners are calling for some of the £5 million emergency support for Edinburgh from the Scottish Government following the Princes Street fire to be used to tackle delays and longer journey times on re-routed services.
Edinburgh Bus Users Group has issued a second open letter to the city council, urging them to improve the arrangements introduced when Princes Street was forced to close after the fire in the former Debenhams store on July 9.
The group says some of the government funding announced earlier this week should be used to step up temporary bus prioritisation measures at all locations where congestion is causing delayed journeys.
It also calls for temporary bus stops to be established on George Street to accommodate at least some of the diverted services. It calls this “a key measure” which would benefit bus users with mobility difficulties as well as city centre businesses.
The campaigners also want to see immediately usable information about diversions at all affected bus stops.
And they urge a dedicated bus replacement service covering the tram route between Shandwick Place and Newhaven, should the reopening of Princes Street in both directions be delayed past the end of August.
The letter notes that the council, responding to the group’s first open letter following the fire, had said its priorities were ensuring public safety, protecting important built heritage impacted by the fire and keeping the city moving during its busiest period.
The group continues: “One month after the Debenhams fire, Edinburgh's public transport network continues to face unprecedented challenges due to the ongoing Princes Street disruption.
“We recognise the enormous resources required to achieve these objectives and fully support them, provided they are pursued in parallel. Everyone will be grateful that public safety has been maintained over the last five weeks and it is welcome news that building stabilisation is expected to be achieved roughly nine weeks post-fire.
“But we believe more must and can be done. Public transport users need not just be kept moving, but delays and extended journey times experienced by them across the entire network need to be reduced.
“We appreciate the cancellation of the George Street Summertime Streets initiative and note the measures taken to improve westbound bus flow at the George Street and Charlotte Square bottleneck.
“However, Lothian Buses was recently forced to reroute three services entirely away from the New Town to mitigate George Street delays. Furthermore, tram users have had no dedicated replacement service, resulting in abandoned journeys and negative local economic impacts.”
EBUG also says lessons must be learned from the “crisis”. It says: “This should start with the collation of comprehensive data on delays across all bus services and include the development of ready-made contingency plans for similar single-point-of-failure incidents in Edinburgh.”
The council said at the time of the Scottish Government announcement that some of the money would be used specifically to help mitigate the ongoing impact of the suspension of trams between the city centre and Newhaven on both Edinburgh Trams and the council, but there was no specific mention of buses.