What do Women have to say when it comes local bus services?

A really interesting interview in The Verge with Caroline Criade Perez, who has written a book called Invisible Women – Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.  I wonder how much attention bus planners give to the views of women when it come to planning local bus routes? With a tram or train you have no real choice — they go where they go but bus routes can be tweaked in so many ways, and what she says about women using buses at night really struck a chord. Even older folk like me disappear from buses at night.

I have copied the question and answer from the interview:

What type of change is necessary to get rid of this data bias on a large scale? Do you have any numbers on how expensive these types of changes would be? 

Essentially, what needs to be done as a first step is to collect the data because without the data, it’s impossible to know what is needed and how much it’s going to cost. For a lot of things, like subways, there’s no doubt that that would be expensive, but there are much cheaper forms of transport that you can deal with, like buses. Buses are much more likely to be used by women because they’re the low-cost option, and it would be very easy to collect the data on where women need the buses to be and what they need for safety.

One thing I find very interesting is that women form the majority of bus users in London during the day, but that switches over at night. We don’t have data on why that is, but I think it’s fairly easy to guess. So if women were using the bus at night, the bus companies would perhaps be making more money, and that could pay for anything they did to try and get more women on the bus, like making sure the stops are in well-lit areas.

I think Caroline Perez makes some good points and it may be that none of this is news to you, but it is an issue which has interested me for a while and I have mentioned before. See my blog from early 2017 at:

https://beestonweek.blogspot.com/2017/01/hail-beeston-bramcote-buggy-bus.html

(Click on the map to enlarge. Slightly different to my original map because of service changes since Jan 2017, but my argument for such a Beeston Bramcote Buggy Bus network remains unchanged).

Maybe evening bus services would be more frequent and profitable if they looked at what women bus passengers want.

The Tram in Nottingham was aimed at men using cars. How true that is now I’m not so sure, but I have femail friends who use The Tram because they perceive it to be safer and more comfortable (the latter I dispute). I suspect the nature of tram stops contributes to the former view, simply because they are more substantial and better lit. Bus stops at night, despite the best efforts of councils like Nottingham, can be pretty grim.

Finally, here is a photograph I took of Beeston Interchange in 2015 (click to enlarge).

It hasn’t changed. I could have taken the same pic last week when I walked through it. Deserted and grim and not a year old at the time!  The land to the right has yet to be developed and Broxtowe Borough Council talks in hazy terms about ‘late-2020’. I feel as sorry for NCT and Trent-Barton as I do the poor sods who have to use it at night.

A lovely winter's day Stapleford to Beeston walk and I feel on top of the world!

Life at the moment is full of contradictions. I was recently reminded by my hospital doctor that I am terminally ill (with ideopathic lung disease) and could find myself falling off a cliff without much warning, yet right now I continue to walk without any sign of breathlessness or tiredness and feel on top of the world. What one lucky bunny I am!

This morning I went to my dentist at Stapleford Health Centre and after a cup coffee I set out to walk home along public footpaths, and dead end lanes and roads. My friend Richard who lives in Beeston works in Stapleford and walks between the two towns weather permitting. You can follow my route on the three maps below, which have been created using Open Street Map thanks to all the work done by their Nottingham volunteers, who have created the base map.

This is more like a picture essay with (unusually for me!) not much text. It took me just over an hour to walk. I did not see another person from the moment I climbed the steps outside Stapleford Health Centre (pic no.2) to getting home, except for a family of four on Common Lane near Southfields Farm and two cyclists who passed me.

1. Stapleford Library

2. Turn 180º and climb the ramp. About 200 yards and you reach Nottingham Road. 

3. Cross Nottingham Road and turn right up Cliff Hill Road, which is quite narrow. 

4. About 100 yards along is this footpath to the left between a blank wall and a house. 

5. At the end of building in pic.4 are these allotments. I will come back in the high summer when the view will be very different I'm sure.

6. Stapleford Cemetery is on both sides of the footpath running towards the A52, Bramcote and Beeston. I am assuming these 'bushes' are yew. Some encase gravestones. I have not seen anything quite them before.  The building to the left is the cemetery's listed chapel and mortuary and dates from 1880. Here is a link to the Historic England listing.

7. The muddy path across a ploughed field from the cemetery towards the bridge across the A52. The farmer does not plant the footpath strip, nor is it anything but tufts of grass and earth. I had stout urban walking shoes on, but walking boots would have been better!

8. Looking back towards Stapleford Cemetery. The hedge stops about half way across and this is the state of the unsigned public footpath. It is the only section of the walk not suitable for urban walking shoes after it has been raining. Ideally, this strip needs a gravel path. It doesn't have to be wide, but if there was such a path this would make an excellent all-year walking route between Stapleford, Bramcote and Beeston. 

9. These steps (and the gates of course) are what make this a walk not suitable for wheelchair users (and buggies which cannot be folded).

!0. From the steps in pic.9 you can see the bridges across the A52. At this point the road is no more than a low rumble.

11. The A52 from the bridge.

12. Across the A52 and to the left is this sign marking 'The Erewash Trail'. The only one I saw. At this point across the bridge the lane/track  goes to the right.

12 still. Then it turns left and across the fields you catch a distant glimpse of Chilwell and Inham Nook.

13. The lane/track may actually be Common Lane at this point. Maps are unclear, but the dog-leg takes you around Southfield Farm and you just keep on walking. It was on the stretch that a cyclist and and family opf four passed me.

14. This signage is a marker of sorts and is on the right-hand side of Common Lane.

14 still. Beneath the signposts this 'pothole' has been marked up I assume for filling. There are another half-dozen like this, but many more unmarked. What makes the marked ones different I have no idea. Perhaps its the size?

15. This is just one section of what once was a serious wall, now close to collapse in parts.

16. On the other side of Common Lane, a little further down, other small buildings are being reclaimed by nature.

17. The closer Common Lane is to Chilwell Lane the more large houses there are, so the lane is clear of mud. Not a single vehicle came along Chilwell Lane as I approached it...

18. ...and once across it remained deserted. This is its junction with Peache Way opposite Common Lane.

19. A fallen tree caught my attention. I liked the detail.

20. I love signs like this — an oxymoron of sorts — is a Christian heaven as exclusive as this? Is heaven littered with signage saying 'This is God's and it's private'?

21. Between here and Bramcote Drive it is pretty much a straight walk through rich modern suburbia on the southern edge of Bramcote village and then across Beeston Fields Golf Course...

22. ...All you have to do is hold your nerve and not doubt that you are on the right footpath. There are lots of high fences and walls. You are in a world where property owners/tenants value their privacy and (in fairness) security.

23. Keep on walking...

24. This a public footpath equivalent of a dog-leg junction. Go to the right and you get close to Cator Lane on the Chilwell side of Beeston...

25. ...At the other end follow the sign to Bramcote. I wonder why one public footpath junction has signage and the other one doesn't? In truth, the signage marking public footpaths is often absent and when it is there, at times, confusing!

26. Turn 180º at pic.25 and you are walking across Beeston Fields Golf Course.

27. The whole route to Bramcote Drive has a high wire mesh fence on either side. I like this no more than the footpath across the farmer's filed in Stapleford. I got the clear view by poking my camera through a gate lock opening. 

28. The same with this view of an up-to-date Tardis which is used to teleport golfers between greens and the Club House.

29. Bramcote Drive and Beeston comes into view. At this point I'm 10 minutes from home. Those of you walking onto Beeston have another 20 minutes ahead of you, and another map to look at.

30. The footpath's end (or beginning if you're going the other way) and Bramcote Road will take you into Beeston (see map below).

31. For me, it's a left turn and straight on. No more corners to turn, my home is dead ahead (as good as literally). I know the road well. I deliver 160+ newsletters and leaflets along it and off it for Beeston West Branch Labour Party.

32. Beeston Town Hall and bell tower close-up, the latter my favourite part of the building. It is difficult to appreciate with all the electronic gob-ons which surround it. The Conservatives who control Broxtowe Borough Council want to sell the Town Hall with little or no idea what might happen to it, beyond wild, optimistic, speculation. Beeston Civic Society is leading a campaign to keep the building as part of the council or transfer ownership to a Beeston based social enterprise, although as yet there appears to be no agreed vision as to its future. The Conservatives claim that it costs c.£500,000 in management and maintenance costs. Perhaps I will write a separate blog on the issue before too long.

 33. Beeston Library entrance, opposite Beeston Town Hall. The Library was refurbished in 2017.

34. Next to the Town Hall is a fine looking Roman Catholic church (The Church of the Assumption) with its square tower (above) and  this side door onto Foster Avenue which you cannot miss. If the church is open then it's worth a few minutes of your time. Modern Roman Catholic churches always seem appealing than their older counterparts (eg. the RC cathedral on Derby Road in Nottingham City City, although it does have a fine garden).

35. Beeston Square on a market day. There is no regular fixed market day, but most Saturdays there is something going on and, increasingly, on other days of the week too.

36. For the next few days this is a holding pic of a Trent Barton 18 bus, waiting to leave Beastmarket Hill in Nottingham City Centre on a short working to Beeston. There are 2 per hour to Beeston, one of which continues onto Stapleford during Monday–Saturday daytime. For this walk this is the perfect link service (click here to see timetable).

I willreplace with a pic of an 18 at the Interchange going to Stapleford.

Hail the Beeston Bramcote Buggy Bus (mobility scooters too) – rethinking community transport

Click on map to enlarge.

'Community buses' are not a new idea. They have been around for ages, some succeeded, others failed, but, as far as I know, the idea has yet to be tried in Beeston and Bramcote.

A community bus should not be confused with local council subsidised routes like Nottingham City Council's L10 and L11 routes, which serve part of the area covered by the above map and the County Council's subsidised routes 510 and 536. Why? Because they serve fixed routes and have timetables. Community buses are hail and ride services, with the flexibility to be door-to-door.

If you question their feasibility, then also ask why Uber are investing in such networks? 

Here are a couple of links to press reports:

Uber launches… a very small bus (The Guardian).

Uberville… one small town at a time (The Verge).

From the latter report this wonderful illustration:

A Beeston Bramcote Buggy Bus would not be cheaper than existing bus routes, but it would be more flexible in terms of it goes and frequency. I see this as a daily 8am–10pm community bus, in time it could start earlier and finish later. It could pick up outside schools in the morning and then drop parents off mid-afternoon when schools close. It might have to serve schools on a rota system at first with a fixed pick up/drop off point in Beeston (the Interchange and Lace Street behind The Cricketers pub on Wollaton Road).

There would also be room for mobility scooters on these little buses. Living in Lenton I used the little L5 Nottingham City Council LocalLink service. A small, comfortable flat-floored bus a bit like Dr Who's Tardis. Very roomy on the inside. If you re-arranged the seats Underground train style and they were all fold-up you could probably get six buggies onto one of these little Optare Alero buses (they date from 2009, so there are more modern versions now).

Photograph from Stuart's World of Buses website. 

Anyone who remembers what is what like to use a bus in Beeston twenty years ago will know that Trent-Barton buses used to run along Abbey Road and Central Avenue. It was only with the coming of the tram that Imperial Road lost its bus terminus bay, then there was the wonderfully numbered 2000 which served Beeston Marina, Wollaton Road before headin off to Stapleford and sandiacre. The 1997 County Council bus map below shows twenty-two bus routes serving Beeston! Now there are ten and with the Y36 being withdrawn of 12 February, there will be nine Bus routes plus the tram.

The world of local public transport is about to change beyond recognition and the people of Beeston can either let companies like Uber take over or they can make sure that they have a community bus network which keeps the money local.

Seems to me this is the way forward for community transport in towns like Beeston is to bring buses and taxis together to form a flexible, but no more expensive, network in which you pay a premium to have a taxis to yourself and pay less if you are willing to share.

The Knoxville, Texas, approach seems sensible. You cap journey charges in overlapping designated areas and as you move into another area or across it you pay a further, albeit lower, charge.

It doesn't have to be Uber calling the shots, but they will if bus operators and local communities and their councils don't start working together!

To understand the economics of all this, simply read the article in The Verge about what is happening in one small town in America.