COMMENT
In their moves to improve air quality in their city regions, the mayors of Greater Manchester and West Midlands have revealed the starkly different ways that they regard the bus. To Andy Burnham, it is part of the Greater Manchester problem. To Andy Street, it could be a component of the solution for the West Midlands. Burnham wants to slap a £100 daily penalty on every non-compliant bus (and lorry) from 2021 and has no intention of ever penalising the owners of non-compliant cars. Street is waiving departure charges at the West Midlands Combined Authority’s bus stations as an incentive for operators to spend the sums saved on upgrading their fleets to Euro6 standard by April 2021.
Burnham wields a stick, while Street proffers a carrot.
It seems that Burnham reflects a political perspective built up in Greater Manchester over the past 30 years that views bus operators as buccaneers and robber barons who block major traffic arteries with needless numbers of vehicles while pumping noxious fumes into the urban atmosphere.
‘We are still living in a system that Margaret Thatcher gave us, which is a free-for-all where bus companies can do what they like,’ he said in December 2017 when arguing for a f…
