My nightmare bus journey across Bristol - and why I can’t blame people who drive

Bristol has a bus crisis, I’ve known and written about that for a while, but recently I’ve started to experience it for myself.

And it’s jolly well getting on my nerves, especially after what should have been a quick journey took hours this week.

For context, I’ve been a journalist, for my sins, for eight years now - and usually the expectation is that as a roving reporter you have a car. When I started out, that was kind of a deal-breaker if you wanted to be a hack.

But things are shifting - we’re just like anyone else being ushered towards public transport in order to save the planet as well as the purse strings. Who can afford to run a car in this town anyway, right?

So I became, for want of a better term from the Inbetweeners, a bus user. I get them everywhere, whether it be to cover inquests at the coroner’s court out in Flax Bourton or if I’m flying off to a crime scene wherever.

But the nature of my job means I have to get to my destination very fast. At the moment, it seems a blessing if I get there at all.

Take Wednesday (July 20) when I had to get a Service 1 bus from the top of Whiteladies Road to a consultation event at the Arnos Manor Hotel in Brislington.

The bus arrived but I was told by the driver it would terminate at the Horsefair, miles from where I needed to be. No biggy, I could wait for the next one.

Another Service 1 arrived soon enough, and luckily it was going all the way to Broomhill. Or not- it also terminated early at the Horsefair, and unassuming passengers were told to get off, please.

At this point three First buses were parked at the stop without drivers and a crowd of people waiting to get on.

Among them were elderly people with nowhere to sit, a grandmother with a toddler who kept trying to toddle off and an exhausted-looking nurse with literal human blood splattered across her scrubs.

It took nearly 25 minutes for another Service 1 to emerge, after which the boarding process was held back further by a woman weighed down by shopping bags and screaming at the poor driver for being so late.

“This is the fourth time this happened to me today,” she wailed. “Your buses are f*ked up, you fool.”

Once, when I was a teenager and admittedly not in Bristol, I witnessed another kid smack a bus driver square in the jaw because he’d confiscated his out-of-date bus pass. My point is, those glass screens are there for a reason.

When it was my turn to get on, I asked the driver if he was alright, to which he shrugged: “Yeah, I’m used to it.”

Then we were swiftly on our way, and I made it to the church on the time. The End.

Except, it wasn’t. Trudging up to the Arnos Court bus stop, I saw that the next two Service 1 buses were cancelled and the next one wasn’t due for another 42 minutes.

While I don’t pretend I’m anything to look at let alone grab, as a 5 ft 3 female, loitering at bus stops looking folorn and/or confused is not the one.

Luckily we’re at the height of summer with plenty of daylight, but it might not always be the same for everyone trying to get home. And get home I did, finally.

Look, I know worse things happen at sea, but I’m fed up - and I don’t think it’s just me.

If I wasn’t fortunate enough to be so able-bodied, or I had a couple of mewling ankle-biters in tow, I’d probably want my old, polluting Ford Fiesta back pronto.

I want to make it clear, if it wasn’t already, that I have no beef with the drivers. How could you possibly?

First are scrambling to get more drivers on the books, and as I watch people lay into them because the last 2a didn’t show, or I write another story about a rock being thrown at a windscreen, I can see why, kinda.

“Instead of getting on the next bus, you could be driving it!” chirp recruitment posters from stops across Bristol.

I’m good, thanks. At least for now.

This is, of course, more than about just little old me. The scale of the climate crisis was laid bare this week as we all sizzled away in a very abnormal 35C. Bristol City Council aren’t pushing for net zero for a laugh.

I don’t know what the solution to the bus crisis is, but I know that car emissions need to start dropping now and fast, this much is clear.

And I’m fully on board, as are thousands more across the city. We want to do our part.

But we also want to get to where we’re going.