Let’s take a logical look at the Leigh guided busway…

1. It was paid for with taxpayers' cash and a long term loan. This is bad value for the taxpayer, as most bus services run at a loss and the taxpayer will have to continue to make subsidies – hardly a boost for the economy. If buses are as successful as TfGM likes to pretend, why wasn't it funded from profits?

2. The majority of workers/travellers are passing through and do not work in one fixed place in the city centre, so bus travel is an option only for the minority.

3. The guided busway has ‘stolen’ one lane from each carriageway on the East Lancashire Road between Ellenbrook and Salford. This crazy idea has made tens of thousands of motorists’ daily journeys along this essential route into the Salford and Manchester areas between 20 to 30 minutes longer. Every morning they are forced to filter into the remaining lanes, causing congestion and stationary traffic at a time when increased road capacity, not decreased capacity, is needed.

4. In reality we all know and see that buses are very rarely full. If eight buses run an hour into Manchester and they have a capacity of 75, you'll see around thirty people on each bus. Let’s give the benefit of the doubt and say 50. Sixteen multiplied by 50 is 800. So that’s 800 people on average getting to work on time while tens of thousands of motorists, HGVs, vans and other drivers all have longer journeys, making them late for appointments, deliveries and so forth.

I'm yet to hear any sensible and logical explanation from TfGM on why making the majority of travellers late so that a small minority can get to work on time makes sense for the economy, or anything else for that matter.

To me it just seems another eco fantasy not based on any logical decision making or grounding in reality.

Nick Waddecar