The longest queue for Better Buses: bus companies are taking us for a ride.

Better Buses for Greater Manchester hosted the longest queue for Better Buses, on Monday 1st July, marking the start of Catch the Bus Week, to make the point:

"Bus companies are taking us for a ride.

We would get the bus if we could, however bus companies have been cherry picking profitable routes, taking home millions and cutting 8 million miles of routes in Greater Manchester. We’ve had enough.

This rally was to show that we’re in the queue for better, publicly controlled buses that serve our communities."

Better Buses for Greater Manchester was really happy to hear that the official assessment recommends moving ahead with bringing our buses into public control! Andy Burnham said it himself: our buses are confusing, unreliable and ever declining right now.

Pascale Robinson, from Better Buses for Greater Manchester added: 

"Public control of our buses would mean affordable fares, a simple smart card with a cap on spend, and services that are accountable to us, our communities, like they are in London. We need to make sure Andy Burnham sticks with passengers and staff, and keeps on going with this pledge to give us better, regulated buses in Greater Manchester.

Unfortunately, since Andy’s recommendations, private bus companies have been showing their true colours. From threatening legal action, to spinning misinformation about higher costs for taxpayers. All this shows is that they care far more about shareholder profits than they do about passengers. We understand why they’d be upset about losing out on their juicy profits – but that’s exactly why they need regulating.

That’s why we held this queue rally outside Burnham’s office, to show we really want this change for publicly controlled buses. We need and deserve better bus services."

Check out the photos on flickr, Facebook, and share our tweets!

You are winning and this is a huge step forward. But our work isn't done. It's a plan - we have to keep up the pressure until the final decision is made. We hope to meet you at an action soon!