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Traffic and Travel

Wokingham Borough Connect

Travel for free this winter

We're planning to offer free bus travel on the six Saturdays leading up to Christmas and for two festive events. A decision is due to be made next week (4 November) following officer recommendations, with costs set to be covered using funding from the Department for Transport.

We offered a similar scheme in the lead up to Christmas 2023 during which Thames Valley Buses saw an increase in use of almost 40 per cent on their Saturday services.

This year Carousel will also participate, giving residents in Wargrave, Twyford and Charvil an opportunity to use the 850 service for free on a Saturday. Since September the 850 has been operating every 20 minutes Monday to Saturday and hourly on Sundays.

If the recommendations are agreed, when you board a bus within Wokingham borough on any Saturday between 16 November and 21 December, you won’t need to pay. Additionally, the Lion 4/X4 will be free on 24 November for the Wokingham Winter Carnival and the Orange 13/14 and 850 on 1 December for Woodley Christmas Extravaganza.

If you’re travelling outside the borough, you will need to pay for your return journey, unless a similar scheme is in place in the area where you board.

This will only be on local buses, operated by Reading Buses, Thames Valley Buses and Carousel Buses and won’t be provided on services such as park and rides or football specials.

Bus shelters to be replaced from next week

Council-owned bus shelters across the borough will be replaced with new, modern, environmentally friendly and sustainably produced shelters, starting next week.

Shelters will also benefit from further enhancements such as a green roofs, solar panels and electrical advertising screens, which will give us an income as we will receive a proportion of advertising revenue.

The current shelters will be removed and reused elsewhere, where possible, with new shelters added shortly after.

The replacement programme starts next week (4 November) and a full list of the shelters being replaced along with the timelines can be found on our website.

Get bus disruption notifications to your phone

Reading Buses have added a new feature to their mobile app, helping to keep you updated on any disruption or changes that may affect your journey. 

There are two different types of notification that will be sent to your phone or smart device, depending on the type of disruption and how it might affect you.

Disruption notifications: for example stop closures, diversions due to an incident or delays to a specific service will be sent to your device as soon as the disruption is added to Reading Buses' website. 

Network change notifications: such as planned diversions and planned stop closures will be sent as a notification at 12 noon two days before they come into effect.

To receive the notifications, you’ll need to have a favourite route and/or stops in your app. 

You’ll then need to opt-in in the app to receive the alerts via a prompt which appears either when you favourite a route, stop or journey or in the app's settings page.

Find out more on Reading Buses website.

Be Bright, Be Seen

Wheely great results for Cycle September

Last month was the annual Cycle September with Love to Ride and riders from Wokingham Borough logged a huge 50,000 miles - equivalent to twice round the world!

There were national and local prizes up for grabs and Wokingham resident, Julie, won a £1,000 gift voucher for Berkshire Cycles. She said: “I took up cycling during the pandemic. I love cycling to work, whatever the weather (mostly!), and I'm so excited to have won such a fantastic prize!” 

The second prize of £400 gift voucher still hasn’t been claimed - don’t forget to check your emails and claim your prizes.

The results for Cycle September are:

• 546 riders took part
• 13 per cent were new riders
• 50,000 miles were logged
• 6,545 kg of CO2 were saved - equivalent to charging nearly half a million smartphones

Congratulations to all our winners and look out for the next campaign, Winter Wheelers.

Reading Borough Council to refund PCNs

Reading Borough Council is sincerely apologising and appealing to motorists who may have paid penalty charge notices (PCN) which were incorrectly issued for parking contraventions in certain parts of Reading. 

The council has discovered that the Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO) on sections of the East Reading Red Route and some parking restrictions in other locations are unenforceable. Drivers who have paid penalties for parking on them will therefore be reimbursed.

A total of 6,136 PCNs were incorrectly issued and paid primarily between July 2018 and 2024, however, some date back to 2013.

Please visit Reading Borough Council's website for a list of affected areas and instructions on how to claim reimbursement.

Upcoming roadworks

Keeping up to date

• For planned and emergency roadworks, follow our Twitter and Facebook pages 
• To find out about roadworks near you, visit One.network
• For active and sustainable travel, including events, training and resources, visit MyJourney Wokingham 
• Visit our major new roads page for plans and updates
• For information on re-surfacing and reactive carriageway repairs visit our pothole and road repairs page 
• You can report any issues with roads and streets online, including street lights, problems with traffic lights, potholes, damaged street furniture, problems with road markings and removal of dead animals. 
• On our parking and permits page, you can find information including car parks and costs around the borough, resident parking permits, park and ride services and appealing a parking fine.
• Our transport and travel page includes information on applying for a senior citizen or disabled person's bus and train pass and local public transport information.
• The blue parking badges page has information on applying for, using, replacing and returning your blue badge.