(04 Apr 2022, 4:26 pm)Andreos1 wrote It's better than nowt. But as you say, I can't see it going very far at all and I struggle to see the long term benefits of this. Particularly when so much of it seems to be on infrastructure, bus priority and propping up the (flawed?) commercial decisions of these operators.

It's absolutely better than nowt, but we shouldn't be hailing it as some great achievement at the same time. We might have got the most out of the vastly-reduced pot of money available for BSIPs, but I believe we asked for the most originally and it perhaps reflects the diverse network between Rural Northumberland and County Durham, with urban Tyne and Wear in between.

I think we need to see the finer details of how that funding split is going to be spent. There's also the question of how sustainable it is, and what happens after the three years. The BSIP document quoted returning to the pre-pandemic level of 162.4 million trips by March 2023 (so less than 11 months away) and then 10% growth on that a year later, so I wonder if those targets will be revised based on the funding settlement awarded.