PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Frustrating buses

I’m sending a photograph of this painting, of two elderly ladies waiting unhappily at a bus stop in the centre of Plymouth to illustrate my feelings last Thursday evening. I’m about the same age; it was the same place, the same weather, and for the same reason. The painting is by the late local artist Richard Woollcombe and I own it.

My evening visit to Plymouth was to see a film, starting at 6pm, so I hoped to catch the bus to Tavistock at 8pm, according to the latest timetable printed by West Devon.

Unaware that Stagecoach had recently advanced the leaving time of these buses by 10 minutes, I arrived just in time to see the no 1 on its way out of Royal Parade on its way to Tavistock. How depressing! I would have to wait another hour in the dark and mist and rain, in the centre of Plymouth, not a place I feel safe in at that time of day.

So on Friday I tried to get an updated timetable for the no 1 bus, only to be told that there are to be no printed timetables in the future, from anyone, ever again. Can you really see these ladies in the painting rummaging about in their handbags for iPhones and spectacles? I do have a laptop and an iPhone, so theoretically I could try to look up the times of a bus route I planned to use, though I haven’t got a printer and would have to go to the library for a paper copy. Getting my iPhone out in the almost deserted centre of Plymouth and trying to find information about a bus service would, frankly, be putting myself at risk of having my phone snatched.

Do Stagecoach and other bus companies really not know who uses their buses? Many are people without iPhones, without computers, without the money to buy them or the knowledge to use them. It is almost impossible to find out anything with a phone call. We are supposed to be encouraging people to use buses, to get out of their cars. Well, if I had a car I wouldn’t be abandoning it any time soon.

There is a silver lining: I took the next bus to Derriford Hospital, where I found a warm safe cafe with friendly staff, so waited in comfort for the next bus to Tavistock to pass through there.

Elizabeth Miller

Tavistock