Increasing bus fares.

As of the 3rd of April, bus fares for concessions in Greater Manchester increased. Concessions includes people aged between 5 and 16, people over 60 and people with a disability before 9.30am and college students who have a concessions passes. The concession fare was once 40p a journey, just before I started high school it increased to 50p and increased to 80p a few years ago. This didn't really affect me as I had a free bus pass because I lived further away, and there's not a church school near where I live and the school I went to was a church school in another town. But see now I have a concession pass which means I don't have to pay adult fare to get the college. I must here add that whereas according to the law I am not yet an adult, but I have to pay adult fare for public transport because I'm over 16. I must also add that adult fares are ridiculously high on buses. My concession pass has meant that for the last 7 months I've been able to travel to and from college for 80 pence a journey, which comparatively to £2.70 as an adult is pretty good.

Now, due to the changes in concession fares, the fare is half adult fare. My bus journeys are now costing me £1.35, that's 55p extra a journey, £1.10 extra a day, £5.50 more a week!

I, like many am astonished at this vast increase in price, and as a poor college student unable to find a part-time job living off my parents this isn't good. I don't like my parents having to spend so much on my travel, I mean we're not poor, we're pretty much a middle class suburban family but an extra £5.50 a week is a lot of money.

It would be very easy for me to complain about the bus services and the council wanting all our money, but they can't really help it. After digging around to confirm my suspicions, the council have had to dramatically reduced subsidies to GMPTE (Greater Manchester Public Transport Executive)-though I think they now call themselves Transport for Greater Manchester? So basically from what I can infer, due to the massive cuts the government is making to all their departments including local councils (the larger cuts happening to councils in poorer regions- this is somehow allowed), this increase in fares is all due to the government! Surprise surprise!

And see, they've had to increase the fares to make up for all the money they're loosing and given that as I've explained adult bus prices are extortionately high, the concession fare is the only place this money could have come from. A half fares is generally a fair deal if you think about it (or at least it would be if you weren't halving an already very high price.

So, once again it seems government cuts are going to affect young people. So that's tuition fees tripling, EMA's going and public transport costs increasing. It's almost as if every cut is negatively impacting people who aren't rich, middle-aged, posh, tory MPs. Funny how that works out. I sometimes wonder if David Cameron, you know that prime-minister we have that wasn't voted in, and his coalition government, also oddly not voted in, are trying to screw up the country as much as they can in 4, oh wait sorry is it 5 now, 5 years before they scarper off back to their large fancy mansions in whichever posh village they choose to reside.

Basically, to sum up my poorly constructed, quite opinionated rant, the coalition UK government are ruining everything and should be stopped, maybe we could protest, it worked for Tunisia and Egypt, and we live in a democratic country, we have a say, surely they have to listen when we speak, surely when the people of Britain protest on the streets of London the government are going to listen...

(I must add that I am sure to have made factual errors in this post, and I take a pretty opinionated view on all this, but, I'm kinda right ;) (but just, don't quote me or anything).