this month with a local travel theme
the wheels on the bus go round and round….then stop.
It?s always nice to hear people are helping the environment. An enterprising mum at Vic College Prep took the initiative a couple of years ago to get a local mini bus company to collect her kids (and others) to reduce traffic and help the environment. Sadly, it seems that for mini bus drivers, an airport run is just too tempting. Althought it?s a lot better than ?the dog ate my homework? excuse, our reporters tell us that a bus load of children were late to school last month as their driver took a call for an ?airport run? mid ?school run?. He therefore dropped his payload of 6-10 year olds at the l?Horizon while he whisked the tourists to the airport. He then collected them again to continue on to school. The l?Horizon guests must have thought it was some kind of child convention as the gaggle of little people convened in the foyer. It seems that since then the mini bus company has decided to discontinue their school run service ?because it?s not economical?.
TATS? TWATS? Whichever acronym they have assumed these days, they?ve definitely been busy beavers..
Who couldn?t have noticed all of the roadworks that have been disrupting traffic flow on the Avenue in recent times? All for a good cause mind you – helping people cross the road by making the pavements and central reservation wider. Not just any people though, but in particular parents with children in prams who might happen to be strolling from the, er, petrol station to the beach (not that there?s a perfectly good crossing / refuge just by the entrance to Milbrook Park) and cyclists who may have been riding precariously down the eastbound pavement against the flow of traffic, or might want to live dangerously by using the Avenue to get to town instead of the perfectly adequate cycle path.
But then… shock, horror! The carriageway has actually been made smaller as a result, presumably something to do with taking space away to make the aforementioned larger pavements, which now means that the Emergency Services might have trouble squeezing past the bottleneck caused at peak traffic times. The solution? Well, they?ll just have to mount the ?specially reinfoced? pavement we?re told (watch out for cyclists and children in prams though). To thicken the plot ever so slightly further, it turns out that Transport and Technical Services didn?t consult any of the Emergency Services to see how they felt about the revolutionary plans before starting work. Uh oh.
Unfotunately, our transport minister has probably been blissfully unaware of all of these issues, no doubt breezing past the melee whilst passing across the junction at Bel Royal in a big blue Connex bus (originally too big for Jersey roads it must be said, before a convenient law change of course), and why not? It?s the quickest and most environmentally conscious way to travel ?long haul? across the island for those who don?t drive, or so we?re told. He may have even sent a text message from his phone to find out when the bus was due whilst waiting around, assuming that he has a JT mobile of course.
Do you ever get the feeling that something doesn?t quite add up?
