Huge Christchurch bus shake-up kicks off Here is all the stuff about another big change in our bus services. Which is driven again by the Government instructing Transit to cut the subsidies for public transport as Gerry Brownlee has never taken a bus in his life and has no idea that people rely on them, thus the formerly excellent Christchurch bus services get relegated to a minimum standard of slow and infrequent service unless you are fortunate to live on one of the main routes. Once again we have the joke of spoke routes that go to hubs that are only 2.5 km from the city centre and spoke routes that go so close to the central bus exchange they could go in except that wouldnt send the right message so they dont. That message is that we dont just need a central city bus exchange, we also need to stop some routes that are really close to that exchange from actually going into it, so there will be a couple of superstops within 1 km of the exchange to make sure that happens. And meanwhile the new bus exchange will have 18 platforms and that is virtually one dedicated platform for each route that goes into it because there are so few now. And supposedly we are making a better city but in reality it is one that has worse public transport and public transport is a really important part of making a better city and it should be a lot easier to use. The problem I also have is that Auckland Transport are heading the same way and the AT planners are getting support from the Transportblog people who say this is the type of reform Auckland needs for their bus services. That there needs to be suburban exchanges within 1 km of the destination where people are compelled to change to a local bus for the last short little hop of their journey and this is somehow better. No one stops to think about the inconvenience and delay of having to wait at the suburban interchange for the connecting bus or that it might actually be faster to walk. In Auckland Christchurch first got some of these spoke routes a year ago and they were carved out of existing routes that werent successful for a variety of reasons. Ecan had the option of improving them to make them more successful. For example the Bishopdale route going through the zone of Papanui High School could have gone past that school and therefore provided a convenient service for students of that school. Instead of improving the routes Ecan decided to chop them in half and make them go via these hubs. So the routes became less convenient and they continued to haemoraghe patronage and now some of them have gone altogether. The problem is that hub and spoke becomes an ideology and you have to fit everything into that ideological mode so you get the contradiction I referred to with routes that are not allowed to go into the central exchange and superstops within 1 km of the exchange. In Auckland or Wellington you might have a hub that is 10 km out and in Christchurch there are a couple of directions, specifically towards Rangiora and Rolleston, where some kind of hub is justifiable, but not ones that are within the traditional bounds of the city and certainly not within 2.5 km of the city exchange. ift.tt/1u4S4Kq Huge Christchurch bus shake-up kicks off BRITTANY MANN Last updated 07:55 08/12/2014 Share Supplied/Stephen Calvert NEW BUS PLANS: Changes have been made to 75 per cent of services across the city. Some Christchurch bus users were enraged to find stops out of service this morning, as the citys biggest ever public transport shake-up takes effect from today. Tell us about your bus journey this morning. [email protected] Stephen Calvert emailed photos of out of service notices and a tongue-in-cheek for sale sign tacked to a Bishopdale bus stop. The people of Bishopdale and no doubt other parts of Christchurch are angry about the loss of their bus service, he wrote. Changes have been made to 75 per cent of services across the city. There would be 9 per cent fewer buses on the roads at peak times, but more frequent buses on five key routes, Radio New Zealand reported. These services would run every 10 to 15 minutes between 7am and 7pm. There would be 15 feeder services running every 30 to 60 minutes, which would connect commuters with the more frequent buses. These services were designed to be within 500 metres of most homes. Read more: Mourning bus route No. 5 Regional council Environment Canterbury was responsible for the changes. Environment Canterbury public transport manager David Stenhouse said Metro information staff would be on the streets and on the phone to help people understand how their route will change. Metro Infos journey planner was a useful aid, he said. He said some commuters had concerns the Metrostar route from Hornby to New Brighton had been removed. The Metrostar name had gone but the service remained, Stenhouse said. The Metrostar route had been replaced by the 125 bus for those going to Hornby Hub, and by the 100 bus which travelled a similar route between Wigram and the Palms, via Canterbury University, he said. For people in the east, the 60 connects Southshore, New Brighton and The Palms, carrying on through the city to Hillmorton. Stenhouse said each Metro Line would eventually be identified by colour though not all the new colours were yet in place. He said the purple and Orange lines would be progressively painted over the coming weeks.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 00:03:19 +0000
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