‘No funding’ for free bus travel for young people, says metro mayor

Free bus travel for young people, students and apprentices would be “very lovely” according to the West of England metro mayor.

Responding to calls to make buses in the region free for young people, Dan Norris said he was “very sympathetic” but there is currently no funding to make it happen.

He was urged by Bristol mayor Marvin Rees to back the campaign on Friday.

Rees has supported calls for free bus fares for young people for several years, however, the power to do that rests not with Bristol City Council but with the West of England combined authority (WECA), which met last week.

Norris said the current focus was on increasing passenger numbers across all age groups but would ask for extra funding.

Dan Norris says he is “very sympathetic” towards the campaign for free bus travel for under-25s but there is currently no funding to make it happen – photo: West of England Combined Authority

Rees said: “We’ve been supporting for some time, and have talked with First Bus as well, about how we get to a point where we provide free bus travel for apprentices and students aged 18 to 25.

“Now we would love to go a lot further but you can’t boil the ocean. This is a group of people who we could make an explicit commitment to.

“I’m not saying we could do all of this tomorrow, but certainly having an explicit commitment to free travel for 18 to 25-year-olds, students and apprentices would be a very good thing to do. When we think about the disproportionate impacts of Covid, lockdown, and now the cost of living crisis on our young people, I think this could be incredibly significant.

“I recognise there are other demands on our bus services, but I think about places in Bristol like Hartcliffe, Avonmouth, Lawrence Weston, and Southmead, and our need to include people in Bristol’s life. This would be an important component. We’re going to continue working on this in the council, but this is something that can’t be done without the combined authority.”

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Listen to an interview with the boss of First bus about reliability, the future of buses and the campaign for free bus travel for under-25s:

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Also last week, climate activists from Extinction Rebellion Youth Bristol put up a poster on a billboard near the M32 in Easton, with a picture of the West of England mayor and the caption “demand better from WECA”, as well as on other billboards in the city.

Extinction Rebellion Youth Bristol “demand better from WECA” – photo: Silverbirch/ Extinction Rebellion Youth Bristol

The campaigners are calling for free bus travel in the region for people aged under 25, students and apprentices.

Hundreds of college students in Bristol also petitioned council chiefs earlier this year demanding free fares for young people.

Researchers have previously shown how teenagers in south Bristol struggle to access A-levels compared to teenagers from northern parts of the city, due to poor quality public transport links.

Despite the current lack of cash for the initiative, the metro mayor left the door open to backing the calls in future. But he added his current priority was getting more people using buses across the board, rather than focusing on a specific age group.

Speaking at the WECA meeting on Friday, Norris said: “I can’t give a commitment to that now in its entirety. Because the challenge is about getting bus passenger numbers up across all age groups, backgrounds, cultures and communities.

“But I am sympathetic to that and it would be very lovely to be able to do that. I’ve committed to trying to get some more money from the government for this particular age group.

“But we do need to think more widely and broadly, but I’m very happy to keep having that discussion. We don’t have easy decisions, whenever we make any decision on public transport, it’s always about what priorities do you give. And it’s tough because one priority always puts something else down in the process. So we’ll work and find a way through.”

Alex Seabrook is a local democracy reporter for Bristol 

Main photo: Ellie Pipe

Read more: Environmental activists ‘hijack’ billboard to criticise WECA on public transport 

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