蜜芽传媒

Good Morning

I was depressed to learn that the distance travelled by local bus services in the last decade has dropped in almost every part of the United Kingdom. And the decrease in sustainable and available public transport is not limited to rural areas. Across the whole of Wales, for instance, figures released yesterday showed the biggest drop of all: 20% drop in 10 years.

Of course, in many of our bigger cities, such as Birmingham and Leeds, bus routes have been reorganised and regular every 10 minute type services - have greatly increased the efficiency on some more-profitable lines. But, for the rest, these new stats make for grim reading.

The effects of all of this can be debilitating and disempowering for those who have no other means of getting about. And the danger, as Chris Todd of the Campaign for Better Transport said yesterday is that 鈥渨e live in a society that is quite prepared to completely abandon certain groups of people and leave them with no option of getting around鈥�.

It used to make me smile in East London how people鈥檚 lives were fashioned by their bus rides.鈥� I told Phyllis on the number 15,鈥� one lady used to say whilst another [and I can see her now] would add : 鈥淛ohn didn鈥檛 look well when I spoke to him on the 58鈥�. I soon realised that that鈥檚 the bus from East Ham to Forest Gate which she took daily.

In one area of my current parish in Hertfordshire there are no buses at all now on a Sunday. So many of the once-regular folk who came to church simply can鈥檛 get there. To combat this, we鈥檝e introduced a Tuesday, rather than a Sunday, service. People have started to come back, simply because
some buses are running on weekdays.

Many continue to campaign for an integrated and sustainable transport network which gives people choice and freedom of movement.

The theologian Philip Sheldrake talks about sharing common experiences as part of which it means to be sacred- in terms of taking us out of ourselves. And in the Christian tradition the physical journey is always one part of what it means when we talk about being a pilgrim people; going from one place to another but usually sharing the journey with others. There鈥檚 usually little sacred in being cut off, marooned or abandoned - if you don鈥檛 want to be.

In the Psalms such a condition is a cause for lament.

The journalist and writer Damian Thompson once joked with me that he knew he was in the north of England when people thanked the bus driver. But those thanks usually reflect the heartfelt gratitude of a significant group of people who have not, after all, been abandoned and whose spirits have been raised in the simple act of the journey itself.

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