Wigan is leading the way in services for young people in many ways, and to add to them, the kids are getting quality services to and from school as well.
Two more brand new home-to-school yellow bus services will be starting in a couple of weeks. This brings the borough’s fleet size to 16 yellow buses – the highest number in Greater Manchester.
Deputy leader and council environment champion Cllr David Molyneux is delighted that funding has now been agreed. He says: “Wigan is streets ahead with its bus services. Nearly half of all the Greater Manchester yellow school bus fleet serve our school children. And there are more to come, with at least three additional routes being prepared.”
The two new home-to-school services will begin running to Cansfield High Specialist Language College and Rose Bridge High School after the Easter holiday.
They are being funded through Wigan's Transport Infrastructure Fund. The Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority has also agreed to fund the operating, repair, maintenance and refurbishment costs.
All this will take the total number of services operating in Greater Manchester to 38, serving 23 schools in nine districts. The two new routes, plus the three upcoming additions, means Wigan will have 19 yellow buses – 46 per cent of the entire fleet.
And the kids will be delighted to hear that the sums tally up: 19 buses times 67 seats, times by the percentage of pupils travelling by car before the buses started (39 per cent) equals 496 cars off our roads. 496 cars in a single queue would take up more than 2 miles of roadspace.
Cllr Molyneux adds: “Nearly all the seats are taken and some services have a waiting list. This makes a real difference to congestion and road safety by reducing reliance on cars for the school run. There’s been a significant shift away from private cars to buses wherever we’ve introduced these higher quality buses.”
