11 January 2012 Cumbrian Trailblazers campaign victory on buses
Cumbrian Trailblazers Carrie-Ann Fleming and Dave Gale have received the excellent news that their campaign to improve the access information available on bus stops in the county has succeeded.
The two Trailblazers launched their campaign in the summer after continued frustration that there was no way of knowing if a bus was going to be accessible to wheelchair users or not. Bus timetables showed the time the bus would arrive and the route it would take, but not whether the bus would be able to carry a wheelchair.
Dave and Carrie-Ann contacted Cumbria County Council and then met with council staff who agreed that the service and information available to disabled people was not up to scratch.
Over the past few months the Trailblazers have kept up the pressure on the council and earlier this week recieved the fantastic news that all bus timetables will now be updated so no wheelchair user need sit and wait for a bus to arrive before knowing if they can board.
Dave and Carrie-Ann said:
We had a meeting last year with the senior transport officer Ingrid Simmonds at Cumbria County Council to discuss how the bus service could be improved for disabled passengers. The obvious issue was brought up about the improvement of the bus fleet which is expected to happen by 2017. But one important thing lacking was a lack of sufficient information on time tables.
The great news of the timetables being updated just goes to show that if you can get to speak to the right person action can be taken and improvements can be made. This may seem like a little change, but to a lot of local people this will mean they can use the bus service with a little bit more confidence, as they know which services they can and can’t use and hopefully once this new fleet is sorted all routes should be accessible.
Read more about Dave and Carrie-Ann's campaign success on their blog.
Commenting is now closed.