(24 Aug 2020, 8:09 pm)Economic505 wrote The Flex is a good DRT service but the Mayor’s party wrecked bus services with the 1985 Transport Act . Bus competition fizzled out by the early 1990s.

(24 Aug 2020, 8:39 pm)James101 wrote Good point, everyone who isn’t a shareholder in the big 4 lost out from dereg - most of all the passengers. But I dint think the Mayor can be held too accountable considering he was about a month off being born on deregulation day.

It’d be fantastic to see Bristol REs swinging by every lamppost in Hartlepool but in the real world The Flex is the most positive thing to happen to public transport in the Tees Valley for a decade.

It's very hard to blame it all on that. Nottingham and Edinburgh aren't doing no better than anywhere else and they're both council ran and the Tyne and Wear Metro which has been nationalised throughout bar a few years with DB Regio is way below it's 1985 levels and that's with an extension to Sunderland.

There's more to it such as the price of a car dropping and out of town shopping centres (remember the Metro Centre wasn't open then) that's done way more damage.