A West Ferry pensioner has organised a petition in protest at changes to the National Express Dundee timetable, which have effectively reduced the service past his Dundee Road home to just one bus each hour.
John Whitehead (70) says many of his neighbours rely on public transport and have been hard hit by the loss of the 8X service.
“It also means that there is nothing after 6pm and nothing at all on a Sunday,” he explained.
Now he and the 180 people who have signed his petition are adding their voices to the growing campaign against the new timetable introduced across the city last month.
Such is the level of anger and frustration at the changes, Mr Whitehead said he had no problem collecting signatures simply by asking at his neighbours’ doors.
To add insult to injury, he went on, those fit enough to climb the hill to Strathern Road can choose from 14 services every hour.
The 8X has been replaced by the 5A and 5B services, both of which miss out the section of Dundee Road between Claypotts Road and Greendykes Road, leaving a small pocket of residents with no direct access to a regular bus route.
“It’s almost as if they had done it deliberately,” said Mr Whitehead, who has now handed the petition to local councillor Derek Scott.
Mr Scott said he will be passing it on to the council’s transportation department so that it can be sent to National Express Dundee to see if they will be prepared to improve the service they provide.
“These bus changes have had quite a significant impact on people, as the fact that they would be willing to get a petition together shows,” he added.
Mr Scott also welcomed a new change to the National Express Dundee timetable in Broughty Ferry, which came into force yesterday.
Following complaints buses were being held up and running late, the 5A service will no longer be using the level crossing at Gray Street, he said.
However, it appears the speed of the change has caught some bus passengers on the hop. Keith Nicoll contacted The Courier to complain about the lack of information available.
“Despite getting either the 5A or the 5B every day, these changes were unknown to me until I saw a poster on the bus on Friday announcing that there were to be changes, but not actually telling us what they were,” he said.
The timetable changes introduced last month have provoked the ire of residents across the city. National Express Dundee director Lawrence Davie has defended the new services, saying many of the old routes were designed decades ago to serve “an industrial workforce that has not existed for many years.”