From a FOSBR Press Release:
Friends of Suburban Bristol Railways (FOSBR www.fosbr.org.uk) ôcongratulate BANES (Bath and North East Somerset) for cancelling the Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) section of their transport package. We urge FOSBR, TfGBA and Portishead Rail Group to lobby the West of England Partnership Board to cancel the South Bristol Link (combined road and BRT) proposal and replace it with the Portishead passenger rail reopening in the current funding round to go to the Department for Transport on 9th September 2011.ö
Everyone present at the celebration of passenger increase on the Severn Beach branch line on Sunday 22nd May 2011 at The Barley Mow P.H., St Philips, Bristol - at least 40 people - supported the above resolution.
Cllr Don Davies, Pill Councillor, North Somerset, said ôContinuing delays on reinstating rail passenger services between Portishead and Bristol now seriously threaten sustainable economic growth in the whole Gordano Valley area with its strikingly poor transport infrastructure. One only has to look across the River Avon to see how the Severn Beach line is thriving with ongoing increases in ridership and across the River Severn at the Ebbw Vale line, which has been an outstanding success, to see that investment in rail gets the country workingö.
Passenger numbers on the Beach line are recorded annually by the Severnside Community Rail Partnership:
À 2,252 daily journeys in June 2009
À 2,818 daily journeys in June 2010.
Since the improved service, financed by Bristol City Council, using two trains on the line which started in May 2008, ticket sales have increased by 60%'. This is a stark contrast to low ridership and poor unreliable service when 27 trains were cancelled on Severn Beach Line in a week. (BEP 31 December 2007).