LUSU President launches walking bus initiative in Lancaster

LUSU President Kate Bracewell has announced the launch of the Walking Bus initiative, which will take students from campus to both Lancaster city centre and Bowerham.

The routes will be volunteer-led, and will take place every evening on weekdays.

This measure comes as part of her bus boycott campaign, which she launched in response to Stagecoach’s increased bus pass prices for the 2026/27 academic year. This has also seen her encourage students to consider other alternatives to buses like cycling.

When announcing this initiative, Kate Bracewell described the buses as “a safe and community-led route home”, highlighting how the walking buses make getting home from campus less worrying when evenings get darker earlier in the day.

Elsewhere, Kate has encouraged students to use other forms of transport in order to avoid using the buses. On a website dedicated to the bus boycott, students are encouraged to consider cycling and car-sharing as an alternative form of transport. These measures form part of Kate’s campaign against Stagecoach’s decision to scrap the Terms 1-2-3 UniRider bus pass – a decision which meant the cheapest bus pass for the entire academic year is £555, compared to £382 last year.

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The increase has become one of Kate’s main priorities since being elected LUSU President earlier this year. She held a meeting with Stagecoach in September to discuss the issue, and in the following month held a meeting for the student body to guide the direction of her campaign.

In August, LUSU ran a survey of Lancaster students to gauge their views on the issue, which received over 1400 responses.

The resulting report found that 86 per cent of those asked thought bus prices were too high. It also found that 70 per cent of respondents had reduced their attendance on campus, either somewhat or significantly, as a result of the price of bus travel.

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