taggering bus usage drop redicted by SELNEC
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• A staggering drop in the use of bus services in the Manchester area by 1984 is °recast by the SELNEC Passenger ansport Executive.
In evidence to the Commons committee studying urban transport planning, the executive says that only 17 per cent of ourneys will be undertaken by bus in 1984 compared with 65.1 in 1966.
Most of this traffic will be transferred to private cars — 69 per cent in 1984 compared with 30.6 per cent in 1966.
The railways are also expected to gain 14 per cent compared with 4.2.
In a memorandum to the committee, the Executive says: "The proposed level of high rate investment for the area over the next 10 years will not keep pace with the growth in traffic, and congestion at the end of the period will be materially greater than at present, "This poses serious problems for bus services on ordinary highways.
"In the face of increasing road congestion, either there must be severe and extensive negative control of private cars; or public transport facilities must be provided by capital expenditure to give a system which is attractive in a positive way."
Ald. CT. Mann, chairman of the SELNEC PTA. said that unless there were radical changes in systems which favoured public transport and made buses usable in city centres, they would not tempt people away from cars.
-1 believe that public transport should have the freedom of the city centre," he told the committee.
More bus lanes were vital, but were not the only answer. "It is only when you say that the motorist cannot pass certain points on the main radials, and there is either free public transport or transport with a boarding charge to take people into the city centre, that we shall attract a sufficient number to relieve congestion," said Alderman Mann.
A revenue subsidy for public transport was inescapable, and he favoured a tax on petrol or some form of local income tax to support public transport.