More Wellingtonians catching buses - report

Fran Wilde. File photo / Wairarapa Times-Age

More people are catching buses, but less are riding the trains in the capital, according to Greater Wellington's latest transport monitoring report.

The report, which tracks how the region is progressing against the Regional Land Transport Strategy, also found the region's road safety record has improved in recent years.

The transport strategy sets targets and outcomes for public transport, walking and cycling, environmental impacts, road network efficiency, road safety, land use and transport integration and freight efficiency.

In 2008 the number of crashes resulting in injuries fell from 1,212 to 1,193 and in 2009 they fell by 15 per cent to 1,016.

The regional council's chairperson, Fran Wilde, said it was encouraging the number of crashes resulting in injury, which increased annually from 2001 to 2007, had started to come down.

"Hopefully the new regional road safety plan, which came into effect last August, will help that trend to continue. However young adults, motorcyclists and cyclists are still at high risk of being involved in a crash, with speeding and alcohol continuing to be the most prominent causes of crashes resulting in injuries," she said.

Ms Wilde said Wellington City and the Wairarapa had "worryingly high per capita crash rates".

"We still have a lot of work to do."

The report also found more people in the Wellington region were opting to walk or cycle instead of taking their car for shorter trips of one or two kilometres.

"This kind of behaviour change is heartening and is another trend we would like to see continue," Ms Wilde said.

The region's public transport network got a mixed report with 23.6 million bus trips taken during 2009/10, up about 1 per cent on the previous year and is the first patronage increase since 2006, however train trips were down 6 per cent on the 2008/09 year.

"The decrease in train patronage is not surprising given the disruptions due to all the work that is under way on the rail network," Ms Wilde said. "Patronage should improve when our new trains come into service over the next few months and the network improvements start kicking in. But we have to make sure that services are reliable. We're working closely with KiwiRail to make this happen."

- NZHERALD STAFF