Colin Campbell: Shivering in dark due to public transport shambles
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One Saturday afternoon on a hot day in late summer I went along to the nearest bus stop in upper Scorguie and sat down on a nearby patch of grass under the shade of a tree. That was then the most comfortable way to wait for a bus, which might arrive roughly on schedule but probably wouldn’t.
Two well-dressed women were also there. Glancing over at me, one decided to follow my lead and sat down on the pavement. She remained like that for two or three minutes. Then she placed her padded bag on the pavement, rolled over, sank her head on it and stretched full out on what had now become her concrete sun lounger.
She obviously hadn’t been drinking, although anyone passing by in a car might have had their doubts. She was just exhausted by the length of her wait in the heat. She didn’t look like she was going to a wedding or an elaborate function, which was just as well because women heading for special occasions prefer not to turn up after having an advance siesta on a pavement.
Between leaving Highland News and Media in 2019, after joining its predecessor in 1975, I wrote a weekly column for nigh-on 30 years and I can barely recall writing anything about the town and now city’s bus services. That was because Inverness seemed adequately served by public transport and although there were sporadic complaints about changed timetables and bypassed streets, discontent and protest faded as people just adapted to changes.
I didn’t use buses then. Neither did most councillors we dealt with, or highly paid officials. And as for MPs and MSPs, despite their attempts to project themselves as men or women of the people, I doubt if they’d have been seen dead in one.
Well for me at least, things have changed. I do use buses now – or at least attempt to – and that’s unfortunate because in past months the service in terms of reliability and regularity has collapsed.
The spectacle of the woman stretched out on the pavement, at the time, I found faintly amusing.
But there’s nothing remotely amusing about bus delays and confusion now. And neither, even back then, was there anything cordial or relaxed about the tension brewing among people at a bus stop in the city centre waiting to get transport home.
A few weeks ago, at a city centre bus stop, the mood was fractious, frustrated and a source of embarrassment. As service after service simply vanished from the neon sign which displays scheduled arrival times, men began to curse and swear and elderly ladies looked away and young mothers with children told the men to mind their language. People were glaring at each other. Some had been waiting more than an hour.
The tension was defused when one did roll into view. People clambered aboard. No one complained to the driver. It’s not their fault.
But for heaven’s sake it shouldn’t have been like that, waiting for a bus, not one of life’s more challenging situations.
For the past couple of months, I haven’t used public transport. But there are still angry rumblings about its inadequacy. The company involved has been actively trying to recruit more drivers.
Ambitions to reduce the levels of traffic on our clogged up streets and become “carbon neutral” are all very well. They may give councillors and officials a warm glow of satisfaction as they pore over their artists’ impressions and imaginative projections for a “green city”.
But amid public transport chaos, drivers would be mad to give up their cars. Councillors and officials should give up their cars for a week and see how they find it standing for an indefinite period before getting to work.
Forget the greening and net zero and the car-free projections. The sole demand of the powers that be should be: “Are you really doing enough to try and counter the confusion, frustration and near despair among people reliant on the city’s often hopelessly erratic public transport service? Because it certainly doesn’t look like it.”
Passengers are being treated with contempt, left shuffling and shivering at 100 city bus stops that sometimes might as well not exist.
