A ride to nowhere in Glasgow
Adham Fisher is a public transport campaigner for England who has gone to various cities and tried to ride as much public transport as he could in a set period of time to describe how successful it is. He was in Scotland for the Commonwealth Games so gave Glasgow a shot - this is what he found out.
The scaled-back 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow have just taken place.
The marathon was one dropped event. I proposed a replacement “bus marathon” to a few sustainability organisations, as it might be a good publicity opportunity for them. At 12:30pm on Thursday 30 July, I, three members of Get Glasgow Moving (GGM) and some chap I’d just met in the Revolver Hotel lined up for the 398 on Killermont Street outside Buchanan bus station. It was our first bus of the next two hours, during which we would ride as many routes as possible for at least one stop.
GGM has run the Better Buses for Strathclyde (BBfS) campaign since 2023. It advocates for putting buses back into public control and better integration between all bus operators, the Glasgow Subway and the Glasgow suburban rail network. As all this is deregulated, there is the slight inconvenience of – if you turn up on the day and want the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) ZoneCard that is valid on all three modes – having to buy a smartcard at a subway station, then going to a Payzone store to have the ZoneCard loaded on that, or making an account and buying it online. Furthermore, ScotRail sell the Roundabout ticket for train and subway only, and the bus Tripper ticket, valid on most operators and routes, is only available through bus apps.
Not realising this and having spent the better part of an hour going between Buchanan Street and Queen Street stations in search of a physical all-mode ticket, it appeared that the cheapest method was to buy the Tripper for £7.20, then use contactless for the subway (capped at £3.40) if I wanted to go to another bus hub like Govan or Partick.
After taking my second bus (75) and trying to pick up more routes by running to adjacent stops and switching the directions on the grid, I began to realise that the city centre bus stops were quite further apart than they looked on the map. This was exacerbated by taking the 9A south from West George Street, it not stopping at Central for some reason and going over the Clyde to Commerce Street, which took about nine minutes with the distance and traffic lights. Additionally, the inclines of the bus corridors in the west of the city centre made running up them a bit difficult, compared with the flatter roads in Merchant City.
The 38 is shared by two different operators and would count as two routes if I caught both. But they do not stop at the same stop. The wrong one approached; I tried to hail it to no avail. In a reversed situation, I was on another shared route, the 3, which sailed past the stop of its other operator with two people trying to hail it. The respective routes are not identical, so perhaps having them serve different stops is an aim to reduce confusion. But it’s confusing.
“It is easy to buy multi-operator or multi-modal paper tickets or smartcards elsewhere, at station machines, counters or on vehicles - it is more of an effort to do this in Glasgow”
Having disembarked a 6A at Theatre Royal, I went round the corner and saw Games shuttle buses leaving from Renfrew Street to Scotstoun Stadium. Enquiring if I could take one, I was asked if I was an athlete (haha), as they were for athletes only. “I’m doing a bus marathon. Not an official athlete, no.” Then I ran a bit further on to Art & Music School and exclaimed loudly with surprise to see fellow competitor Paul there. We both took the 18 and were level with nine routes ridden. An hour in at that point, I dropped my target from forty to twenty routes.
Laurieston was the home straight, going up and down Eglinton Street on the 38, 38b and 38e (prefixes and suffixes denoted different routes), then I just managed to take a 10 before the two hours were up. A grand total of eighteen routes, which was personally disappointing. It just didn’t have the pace I had anticipated, but no blame could be apportioned.
The medal ceremony was in St Enoch Square, using railway tickets from aptly named stations. Brondesbury went to Eilidh (nine routes), Silverdale to Lukas (seventeen) and Goldthorpe to Paul (eighteen – I relinquished the chance to share the medal, plus I had the return portion anyway).
With better preparation, eighteen bus routes in two hours is beatable. I also want to try visiting every station in the Roundabout area in the fastest time, like the Tube Challenge.
In any case, the best way to recover after this excursion was to take bus 23 to the Hydro to watch the Games netball a few hours later, and next morning, the subway to Govan, walk over the Clyde and spend three hours in the superb Riverside Museum. And I have surely discovered a great visual symbol of transport racing; the running clock outside Buchanan bus station.
I’ve spent many more hours riding buses in London, Leicester and the West Midlands conurbation. Glasgow bus stops seem to be much further apart in comparison. Add to that the huge size of Buchanan bus station and it might not have been practical to take a bus from there, ride one stop, run back and take another several times. Local suburban bus stations and interchanges are much smaller, but that’s natural. I did not have the time to take buses from the stations at Govan and Partick. Hopefully I might if I am asked to ride every single service in Glasgow…
It is easy to buy multi-operator or multi-modal paper tickets or smartcards elsewhere, at station machines, counters or on vehicles. It is more of an effort to do this in Glasgow, which I only realised when I arrived. I always prefer physical tickets because technology can sometimes glitch, as demonstrated by the app on which I bought my Tripper ticket crashing after the marathon. Had it done so during, that would have been a disaster.
It will take more travelling in Glasgow to better understand the issues facing its transport, but Leicester has the Leicester Buses enhanced partnership, allowing contactless fares and multi-operator tickets to be used with ease across the operators while they retain their autonomy. Perhaps something like that might be an option for Glasgow?