News release from Wellington City Councillors Simon Woolf and Diane Calvert

Wellington City Public Bus Service -Feedback from locals

Wellington city councillors Diane Calvert and Simon Woolf were pleased to be able to provide direct customer feedback at the Transport and Infrastructure select committee at Parliament today.

Councillors Woolf and Calvert recently released the results of an online survey they ran seeking feedback on the current state of the bus service and shared those results today with the committee.

Key findings from the survey of 468 respondents are;

· 91% of respondents say their experience of the new bus service is worse than before July 2018

· 72% of respondents are considering alternative options to get to town with the majority considering car

· 46% of respondents say they are using the bus less than before July 2018

Councillor Woolf says “For some time we have been actively advocating for our city’s residents and wanted an independent snapshot in time to support our ongoing concerns about the bus service provided by Greater Wellington Regional Council. The survey results clearly show that there are still significant issues being faced by bus patrons These issues are slowly eroding both the social and economic fabric of our city and impacting of the health and well-being of our citizens.”

Councillor Calvert says “What we need as an additional early improvement is a coordinated bus transport improvement plan, covering the whole city, to be delivered over the next 10 years while investment and delivery for mass transit is completed. The plan would not only consider additional routes, capacity, bus types and priority lanes but also look at better fares to attract more patrons.”

Councillors Woolf and Calvert believe further and broader improvements to our bus service will provide speedier and greater value to ratepayers, have a strong impact on reducing cars on the road and get us quicker to our carbon-neutral targets. They say improvements can still carry on in parallel with other work on new roads and mass transit routes but at least people will still be able to get to work, school and home when they want.

Councillors Calvert and Woolf are advocating for a governance group to be formed by representatives of New Zealand Transport Agency, Greater Wellington Regional Council and Wellington City Council (similar to the Lets Bet Welly Moving group) to govern the current bus service improvements in the city. Calvert says “this means that there will be a fairer and more equitable representation and accountability of those contributing to the bus service including taxpayer funding, ratepayer funding, infrastructure and service delivery.”

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