City leaders have agreed to plough ahead with the Aberdeen rapid transit bus route – despite claims the ever-increasing pricetag would be better spent elsewhere.
The cost of the modern scheme has more than doubled in the last three years, jumping from the initial projected price of £150 million to a whopping £323m.
Rises in building cost and inflation have been blamed for the increase.
Two fast-track bus routes will be created from Blackdog to Westhill and Craibstone to Portlethen under the blueprints agreed last summer.
Council bosses hope this will reverse a years-long decline in public transport passengers, with more and more people opting to use their cars.
However, the flashy new price for the project hasn’t landed well with all.
Nearly £2m has already been spent on the project, with another £1.4m put aside for the remaining design stages.
And opposition councillors argue that it should have been spent on existing bus services – instead of the “dead in the water” proposals.
What is the latest with Aberdeen rapid bus project?
Much of the debate at the crunch meeting centred around how the project will be paid for.
Council chiefs hope to only cover half of the eventual cost, with the other 50% coming from various grants aimed at boosting public transport.
Bus Partnership Fund programme manager Kirsty Chalmers today explained that the design stages will be covered by £700,000 both this year and next year from the Scottish and UK Governments.
However, several sceptics raised some concerns over how the local authority could afford to cover even half of what could become a multi-million-pound project.
Alex Nicoll, the former leader of the SNP group, has been independent since denouncing Aberdeen’s bus gates.
Declaring himself a “maths geek”, he questioned the viability of the pricey proposals.
What does ‘maths geek’ councillor make of the Aberdeen rapid transit plan?
He claimed that, having crunched the numbers, if the council borrows half the amount needed for the project, they might end up slapped with a £10m bill every year to pay off the interest.
He went one step further, to calculate the number of journeys required on the fancy new bus route to make up this sum.
Officials said the scheme could increase bus usage by 8,900 people per year – but given the amount of trips they will all have to take to make up for the costs, “the numbers don’t add up”.
The bemused former policemen argued that more than four million journeys would be needed “just to pay off the interest”.
‘We have already committed £3.4m to this project without a shovel in the ground’
And he argued it’s better to spend the money on the buses the city already has – scores of which have been sitting idle for about a year.
It came after council papers revealed there was a poor perception of public transport in the Aberdeen area.
The local authority was presented with a list of 10 main reasons people tend to avoid the bus – including frequency, reliability, high ticket prices and more.
Mr Nicoll said: “In fairness, the bus companies in Aberdeen have invested tens of millions of pounds on electric buses, hydrogen buses, really upgrading the fleet.
“And yet, we are still looking at poor perceptions.
“Would we be better addressing the 10 issues with the same money – or hopefully a lot less – and increase bus passengers that way? Would that not be a better idea?
“At the end of the day this is public money. It would end up at much less cost to the public purse.
“We have already committed £3.4m to this project without a shovel in the ground.”
Aberdeen rapid transit plan is ‘only option’ to improve bus times
However, arguing the case for the project, Ms Chalmers said the rapid transit plan was the only option to influence a “drastic change” in people’s behaviour.
She added: “One of the key problems that comes time and again when it comes to why people don’t use the buses is punctuality and reliability.
“And that hinges on a bus priority route and giving buses the free-run.”
When Mr Nicoll pressed for more detail on the exact cost of the project, Ms Chalmers said it’s too early for that.
She said: “The aim of ART is not to take existing bus or rail passengers and ask them to use that instead – it’s about encouraging a change in behaviour.
“What we have is a cost range – from £167m to £323m – depending on what is decided.”
And she stressed that any costs put forward at this point were “indicative”.
“These would be further developed along with a more detailed understanding of the wider economic benefits to the north-east,” she told the meeting.
Meanwhile, Tory group leader Richard Brooks questioned whether any bus lane and LEZ fines would be used for this scheme.
He was told this “was not being considered”.
Who else supported the idea?
The SNP’s Michael Hutchison told the committee he was impressed by the Belfast Glider service said to have inspired Aberdeen’s rapid bus project while on a recent trip to Northern Ireland.
He recalled: “I had never seen a park and ride so full.
“I’m happy to stand up to whatever government, of whatever colour, on whatever level and say that this project needs to be funded – and it will be transformative for this city.”
Ultimately, councillors voted to proceed with the project.
That means officials can now press ahead with further work before forming a more detailed report on the scheme.
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