TOURIST TRAFFIC - ON FOOT OR IN VEHICLES?

Introduced by Ray Newbigin, Bath Federation of Residents’ Associations, on 9 June 1998

At the beginning of his talk the speaker reported that the Transport sub-Committee had that afternoon unanimously agreed to implement the current City Centre Team’s programme of modifications to traffic control in Bath. He also welcomed the reporter from the Bath Chronicle, Charlotte Dunn, and offered to screen a 20-minute video concerning the Open Top Tourist buses at the end of the discussion. This video had been an exhibit at the Inquiry into the proposed closure of Royal Crescent to through traffic, which had occupied him for the last week.
Bath is a difficult and unpleasant place to walk around because of the traffic. The argument made by tour bus operators is that many people will not or cannot walk around because of the hills and distances involved in seeing all the sights. It is also claimed by the bus companies that many tourists take a bus tour to get an overview before walking around.
People use cars for shopping, school trips, commuting, because they are elderly, and for sight-seeing as tourists. It is only by persuading them to change their habit of using the car and take to walking that a substantial difference will be made to the traffic volume. The speaker asked members of the audience to state how much they believed it cost them to run a car for a year and received replies from £600 to £2500. He then produced figures for several years past for his own family, which showed that their main car, a 10-year-old, cost £2500 - £3000 and their ‘second’ car (now disposed of), £1300. The person who claimed his car cost him £600 a year justified it - his car cost him £250 originally so the depreciation was negligible. But people consider only the day-to-day running cost, chiefly petrol, when comparing its use with bus fares.
In spite of a plea by the Chairman to widen the discussion, most contributions concerned Open Top Tour buses. It was not widely appreciated that the local council has no powers to control them so that, until the law is changed, which the council were attempting to get done, the operators were in control. They carry about 270,000 people a year (13% of the tourists). The fare of a single passenger pays the cost of fuel for one tour.
A resident of Bennett Street has complained directly to the commentators on the buses about the noise of their amplified talks. The buses park just outside her house and give the commentary about The Circus, as they have agreed not to give it whilst in The Circus. She has received no co-operation from them and hears about Bladud and John Wood seventeen times an hour! The Council are said to be proposing to make it a condition for licensing a pitch at which to sell tickets that commentaries are recorded, and played through individual headsets.
Ian Wood of the Bath Rickshaw Company is trying to introduce bicycle rickshaws, perhaps with electrical drive assistance because of the hills in Bath, but they are classed as hackney carriages (taxis) and therefore the ‘driver’ has to pass a medical (£85) and local geography (‘The Knowledge’) tests, which makes the scheme uneconomic. It was suggested that he might hire them out as self-drive vehicles.
Julia Moss, who is a Blue Badge guide, phoned in a comment about coach parties who tour the City before being dropped at Orange Grove. These vehicles are too large for Bath streets and she suggested they should be required to park on the edge of the city and transfer their passengers to smaller, preferably electric-powered, buses for such a tour, the cost being included in the original tour ticket. Some years ago Bath City Council had banned coaches from the Royal Crescent.
The Chairman of the Mayor of Bath’s Honorary Guides said that people were quite prepared to walk around on their 2½-hour tours and that 28,305 had done so in 1996. He thought that with more guides and less vehicular traffic this number could be doubled.
The speaker finished by urging everyone to walk themselves and to persuade others to walk. ‘We have got into the car habit. We have now got to get into the walking habit.’
Don Lovell