Free bus travel for the over 60s in England

Companions of disabled bus travellers often qualify for the new passes, but this is at the discretion of the local authority as a reply from
the Department of Transport shows:

Here is the reply from Paul O’Hara


“In reply to your question, there is no statutory requirement for companions of disabled travellers to get free off-peak local bus travel. The new Concessionary Bus Travel Act 2007 does not change this (those entitled remain as described in the Transport Act 1985 and Transport Act 2000, or, for Greater London, the GLA Act 1999).
Local councils may, at their discretion, grant a concessionary bus pass to a companion, but they are not required to”.

And there can be restrictions even when they are issued. For example, within Gloucestershire, travel companions can only travel free within the county.

moldovia wrote: »

Almost the 5th of April and I am still waiting for my new busspass!

Bad luck! My council was wise enought to keep its photos from the previous year and merely re-issued the new ones with the old photos. Mine arrived around the 25th March. Fortunately, the reproduction of the photos was better than the first time around and I don't now look like convict 99!

harryhound wrote: »

Well I've had a reply, its a complete coincidence:

Thank you for your email. Your application is being dealt with and should be with you by the 12th April.
You can use your existing pass until then.

Yours,

Thurrock Council Contact Centre.

My pass has arrived.
I won't go into really nerdy details about my journeys (if you need details send me a Personal Message). But here is a summary, highlighting the main points and discussing the pro's and con's. I've tried to make it intelligible to someone living "North of Watford" by concentrating on nationally known landmarks.

Tools of the Trade: Haversack, Map ("M25 Master" - Collins), Sandwiches, Flask. Traveline web site. A compass would be useful in case there is no sun or satellite dishes available. - Rich people could take their Sat Nav:D

The Challenge: To get from "Lakeside Shopping Centre" to "Hampton Court Palace" - The London version of Traveline is in fact Transport for London and does overspill to "Places of Interest" in the Home Counties. Lakeside is a large shopping centre due East of London alongside Junction 31 of the M25. Hampton Court was the Royal Palace for Henry VIII and William&Mary. It is on the North Bank of the Thames about 10 miles in from the M25 Junction 12, along the M3 towards London.

If Traveline for London, can find you a route, it will offer a map with a "wizard" that will make a little picture of a bus motor along the street map.
HOWEVER, I don't believe Traveline's definition of a "bus" is the same as the card's definition. I won't spoil the fun, but try ticking "bus only" and ask Traveline for a Lakeside to Hampton Court route. How was it for you? Long distance road travel but no site seeing in London?!
Transport for London seems to have established a transport hierarchy. This means that now buses tend to zig zag through housing and then deliver their passengers to the rail/tube station. There are virtually no long distance buses. So you have to break down your journey into small sections and extract two or three bus rides for each query.

If I did this journey by car (at 07:00 on Christmas morning ) it would take about an hour each way, I dread to think what it would take on a normal week day.
My route would be A13 towards Canary Wharf and Tower of London; Embankment, past Big Ben to Putney; A3 over Wimbledon Common (Watch out for the Wombles) and down the side of Richmond Park, round the Kingston Bypass;. "Silly Isles" (collection of roundabouts) and North up the Hampton Court Way.
By bus it took much longer:
10:30 bus 272 single decker to the outskirts of Dagenham.
10:50 bus 287 :o:o:o:o Woops got on the one going in the wrong direction.
Interesting trip on the top of a double decker looking into the gardens of the Abbey Wood Estate.
11:20 Bus 287 back where I started:rotfl:. Went past what is left of the Ford plant, lots of weeds growing in the cracks of the car parks:rolleyes:
12:00 Bus 5 Hmm there are 10 people on the top deck, the other 9 are of African extract. Via West Ham to:
12:35 Canning Town Flyover, This is a transport interchange almost in the shadow of Canary Wharf and over the Thames from the 02 Dome (now the World's busiest Rock venue?) Ah a chance to "spend a penny" - actually its free but one of the two cubicles is out of order and the hand drier died some months ago.
12:40 Bus 115 double decker to Stepney. The politicians would prefer to call this Limehouse and on the other bank Surrey Docks has been renamed Sarah Quays, supposedly after some politician's girlfriend.
12:45 Bus 15 thru the City: Tower Bridge, Tower of London, Monument, St Pauls, Law Courts (someone is waving a poster that says "Millions of People Agree with Fayed" and there are a dozen TV vans drawn up.
14:00 Eventually struggle into The City of Westminster, along The Strand, arriving in Trafalgar Square (I understand that there were roadworks on the parallel route called Lower Thames St). I came near to depriving another tourist of a seat on this bus, it was "a tower of Babel" and nearly full. A worker would have travelled by tube.
14:08 Bus 9 Very high tech, it not only "kneels" to let the old clamber aboard, it displays the stops and final destination and annoyingly also speaks its display and number. Royal Academy in Picadilly, Duke of Wellington arch , between Buckingham Palace and Hyde Park; Albert Hall & Memorial; Kensington Palace; Holland Park; to Hammersmith bus garage and shopping mall. You can spend a penny here too but to be more accurate not one old penny but 30 new pennies:eek:.
15:00 Bus 33 is a single deck. Over to the South bank of the Thames, past the Barnes wetlands centre and into Richmond with its rebuilt riverside designed by
Quinlan Terry, Prince Charles' favourite architect.
http://www.urban75.org/walks/richmond-kingston.html
Over Richmond Bridge to Twickenham, passing Marble House en route to a tricky interchange, where a cross roads zig zags over the top of a railway line.
16:00 Bus R68 has to take a big detour through varieties of "Hampton" before turning back East along the North bank of the Thames to arrive at Hampton Court.
(Presumably buses are not allowed to run through the royal Bushy Park)
A short walk and I arrive at the home of my elderly relative at 16:30.
[I cut the grass, he defrosted some meals on wheels and we cracked open a bottle of wine to prove that, on a MSE budget, we too could joint the "new indulgents".]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/text/print.html?in_article_id=544590&in_page_id=

The next morning, my return journey was largely a rerun of the previous day, but I extended the journey on bus 5 to visit Romford market.
Two buses were turned back short of their destination, which means the traveller must keep their wits about them.
All the drivers accepted my card, by stabbing a button on the right of their machine two or three times. At Barking station, the bus was invaded by half a dozen ticket inspectors. I got a lady inspector, who could not get my card to work her terminal and said "I'll pass on that one", then proudly told her colleagues she had bagged the first out of town freedom pass.:beer:

Would I do it again?
Well it is not a very practical method of transport in London. For speed I would go back to taking my bike and "senior" rail card, so I could bike from Fenchurch St to Waterloo and make the journey in about 2 hours each way, at a return cost of about 10 GBP.
But it is great for sightseeing and Transport for London has much improved the buses with good displays and maps at the stops. The buses run from before 6:00 to after 24:00 in most cases 7 days a week and are manned by drivers in clean and tidy uniforms.

Finally I would like to thank all those motorists paying the congestion charge, for making this possible.:T:T

crossleydd42 wrote: »

Quote:
Originally Posted by sluggy1967
It would have been nice if Martin had mentioned disabled people at the beginning.

The word 'disabled' was just four words after the number '60' in his posting at the top of the page...

It would have been nice if Sluggy1967 had had the courtesy of apologising for maligning Martin.

I hit the thanks button by mistake.

Martin did NOT mention disabled in his email, so no sorry, I shan't apologise.

sluggy1967 wrote: »

I hit the thanks button by mistake.

Martin did NOT mention disabled in his email, so no sorry, I shan't apologise.

Have yo sent him a PM so he can revise this in next week's email and get more publicity for this thread, or start another one especially for the disabled. I came across several in by travels, who had mastered the TfL mechanics of using the buses and obviously relished their freedom.