Updated proposals for the Rougier Route bus priority trial will be considered at a meeting of the City of York Council’s Executive next week (7 July).
It comes after three rounds of public engagement ranging from citywide discussions to meetings with the residents and businesses in the area, and other key stakeholders.
At the meeting councillors will be presented with the feedback from that public engagement work and will review the proposals, which have been updated as a result of that feedback.
One of a number of significant investments in the city’s bus network, the Rougier Route trial would see a bus gate and bus lane installed on George Hudson Street to lower Micklegate.
In addition to modelling data, a full report and full consultation report, Executive will be asked to consider four recommendations from officers. These will all be discussed by the Council’s Executive on Tuesday 7 July.
The options being put forward for discussion are:
Option One: Proceed with the Rougier Route proposals from January 2027 using an experimental traffic regulation order and allowing Blue Badge Holders and Hackney Carriages exemptions to the George Hudson Street and lower Micklegate bus gates. Hours of operation to be 7am to 11pm. Recommended.
Option Two: Proceed with the Rougier Route proposals using a permanent traffic regulation order. Not recommended
Option Three: Implement the Rougier Route with a sub option permutation of Executive’s choosing. Not recommended.
Option Four: Do not proceed with the Rougier Route proposals. Not recommended.
The options have been developed following extensive consultation, which is also reviewed in the report. In summary;
- 57% of all respondents agreed that encouraging more people to travel by bus will reduce congestion
- 58.44% said our proposals would, or maybe would, help York’s bus services run more reliably
- 79.54% said York is ‘quite negatively’ or ‘very negatively’ affected by traffic congestion
- Within this, the highest response to ‘very negatively’ came those aged 25 to 39 (65.5%)
- Nearly a third (29.84%) of respondents have had to take one bus earlier than they need, to get to where they’re going on time
- 38.8% of disabled respondents said that work is the most important reason they use the bus
- 83.3% of respondents aged 16-24 said that they felt that encouraging more people to go by bus would help reduce congestion.
The papers for the Executive meeting can be viewed here: https://democracy.york.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=733&MId=15603
