Wellington public transport: Half-price fare scheme useless if buses don’t turn up

Commuters waiting at a bus stop on Lambton Quay in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

OPINION

Thousands of cancelled buses in Auckland and Wellington are wiping out any savings that passengers make from the Government’s half-price fares scheme.

It’s a major flaw in a plan designed to help people get through the cost-of-living crisis.

That’s because people are being forced to take Ubers, taxis or other means of transport just to get to work when their buses don’t show up.

A nurse who works in an aged care facility in the Capital recently caught three Ubers in one week at the cost of about $14 per ride.

She takes the train from Porirua to Wellington and then catches the bus up to Karori to get to work. Her family owns one car, which her husband uses to get to work in the Hutt Valley.

Spending more than $40 a week on Ubers is unaffordable for her family’s budget, but she has to get to work somehow.

Last week 8 per cent of bus trips were cancelled in the Wellington region, or 1871 trips in total. Almost 1000 bus services have been suspended across Auckland to try and provide commuters with more certainty.

There is a nationwide shortage of 800 bus drivers, 500 of those in Auckland.

A public transport crisis, on top of a cost-of-living crisis, on top of a climate crisis, is a total disaster.

You’d think that when budgets are being squeezed, people could rely on buses and trains as a cheaper way to get to work. But no.

It’s believed Greater Wellington is the first council to set a binding regional emissions reduction target, which aims to halve net greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

So, you’d think our public transport system would be a well-oiled machine to achieve this target. But no.

It honestly feels like some sort of sick joke.

Unreliable public transport also becomes a safety issue. Being stranded in the city for more than an hour at night, in the dark, and waiting for a bus is unacceptable.

Our night-time economy will be affected if the situation carries on this way. I feel reluctant to stay out for dinner or drinks after work with the prospect of a real-time information board filled with cancellations at the end of the night.

When the bus does show up, the situation is becoming increasingly desperate.

I caught a bus home from work earlier this week (after checking for cancellations well in advance) with a new driver on board.

He had no idea where he was going and ended up having to do a U-turn to get back to the turnoff for the Mt Victoria bus tunnel.

The driver apologised to everyone on board, explaining he was new. Passengers gave him directions for the rest of the way so he didn’t make another wrong turn.

I‘m not blaming the driver, but it made me wonder whether we are so desperate for drivers that operators are putting people behind the wheel before they are ready.

The Government has announced it’s spending $61 million to lift bus driver wages to address the nationwide worker shortage.

That’s welcome news, but it will be months before it takes effect and we should be worried about the damage being done - and whether those who give up on buses will even come back.