Living in my new flat I’m in the precarious position of being near to many forms of public transport. With bus stops as far as the eye can see and just beyond that is the train station.
During my university days I used public transport almost exclusively to get back and forth. Most of the time it was the train, which meant using New Street.
With thousands of trains coming and going day in day out there are bound to be the odd delay, which is acceptable. However, when these delays are caused by miss-management and poor control systems something needs to be done.
For many years there has been talk about giving New Street an overhaul. In the latest bout of proposals New Street gets another set of platforms, a lofty makeover and a sparkly lick of paint.
While this is great for the artisans amongst us the practical side of me wonders if these improvements will be more then skin deep. Will they finally dump the cash-sucking Windows and jump onto the Open Source bandwagon?
Although I’m not a regular ‘user’, I must admit the bus service by me is annoying regular (all those buses driving by really messes with my tv reception!). With some nice new touches, such as location of where the next bus is and its eta, maybe buses are the way forward?
Or maybe not. Even if there were massive improvements to public transport, the chances are I’d still take the car!