Monday, 16 February 2015

82 Night Bus has been Withdrawn, Goddamnit


Once in hallowed times there was a night bus that allowed partygoers in Manchester to get home from a night out if they were heading back to Oldham, whether they were drunk or too poor / tight to shell out £30 for a taxi. Those days are, for the moment, over. I asked public transport company First Manchester why this bus service seemed to have been discontinued, given how helpful it was.

Here's their response in full:

Our Ref: CID/C0225391-NOR
 
 
16 February 2015
 
 
Mr M Tuckey
 
 
Dear Mr Tuckey
 
I'm sorry to hear you're not happy that we've had to withdraw our number 82 service. 
I can quite understand your frustration and disappointment, 
especially as you found this service to be so useful.
 
However, this service was subsidised by Transport for Greater Manchester 
and they have withdrawn the funding for the service..
 
Once again, I'm sorry you've been affected by our withdrawal of this service, 
but I do hope you'll appreciate why we had to do this. 
I hope that we can look forward to seeing you on one of our other bus routes again soon.
 
 
Yours sincerely
 
Devastation. Guess I'll have to keep on being designated driver.

Of course, if people from Oldham realised that there was a better place to go instead of just looking at what was at the end of their noses and getting drunk on Yorkshire Street every weekend for a decade of their life, there might be more demand and the service might have lasted. Who am I kidding though.

People living in Bolton or Leigh have better luck.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey mate, I found your blog by googling around to find similar annoyed bus users! I submitted a similar complaint about the 67 route, and got pretty much the same response....

"I'm sorry to hear you're not happy that we've had to withdraw some of our night services. I can quite understand your frustration and disappointment, especially as you found this service to be so useful.

We were able to operate some of these services on a commercial basis due to Transport for Greater Manchester subsidising our other night buses. Unfortunately Transport for Greater Manchester have stopped the funding for some of our night services and after reviewing the 67 service we found it wouldn't be viable for us to continue operating on a commercial basis. To do so would mean that we would be losing money.

Once again, I'm sorry if you have been affected by the withdrawal of our services, but I do hope you'll appreciate why we had to do this. I hope that we can look forward to seeing you on one of our other bus routes again soon."

:(

CageFightingBlogger said...

Thanks for reading! Yeah it's a real pain. Shame they can't have a train / tram running instead!