New research shows that bus passengers in Scotland are routinely subjected to hazardous walking environments and inadequate bus stops, which is particularly affecting older and disabled people. Living Streets Scotland carried out the Bus Connectivity Project to understand how people could be moved away from private vehicles onto more sustainable options.
A lack of information at bus stops was an issue at 95% of sites surveyed as part of the project, followed by poor quality pavement surfaces (85%), poorly located or inadequate crossing points (80%) and missing dropped kerbs (55%)
The Scottish Government-funded project captured older people’s experiences of walking to catch a bus, looking at issues affecting the walking environment on approach to – and at – bus stops at 20 locations across Scotland. Despite the poor-quality experience, most people interviewed as part of the project still rated their walk to the bus as good (74%).
Based on findings from the research project, Living Streets Scotland has produced its Bus Stop Toolkit with recommendations for local authorities and communities on how they can proactively improve access to transport hubs and fund these improvements.