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My Public Transport policy

by Whaleoil on August 30, 2010

Policy on Public Transport

Public Transport hasn’t worked in Auckland for the very simple reason that it is a large, spread out city with a small population on a global scale. There are not enough people close enough to public transport stations to mean they can commute solely using public transport. They likely will have to drive first, then get on to public transport. This defeats the purpose of taking a bus or a train, if you are in your car you might as well go the whole way by car.

Aucklanders and Albany voters have voted with their cars, and last year only 32000 people used public transport to get into the central city. The demographics of Albany are such that just 5% of voters take public transport. The voters of Albany have voted with their cars.

That means I will support more roads, more parking and if this means toll roads that ease congestion, I am all for them. Lets just end the hypocrisy about public transport being good for everyone, because if it was people would have stopped driving before now.

The big problem with public transport is it is always something “other people” should use. So the Whaleoil policy on public transport is to identify the “other people” and make it mandatory for them to use public transport:

“Other people” include

-       Green Party Members

-       Public transport advocates

-       Cyclists who whinge about roads not being rider friendly

-      Anyone who votes for Andrew Williams

If we could get this group of whingers off the road we would ease congestion and make it a lot easier for the rest of us to get around.

Vote Slater - Albany - Auckland - Keeping the Buggers Honest

Vote Slater - Albany - Auckland - Keeping the Buggers Honest

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  • michaels

    When I lived in Sydney in the 80′s I never bothered with a car cause the public transport was so good. I never waited more than 10 minutes for a train or a bus.
    However, living in Auckland I have never caught a bus or a train and the reasons are very simple…
    1. I have a car that likes to go on outings and not sit in the drive.
    2. One never knows when a bus or a train will show up. (except the Link bus)
    3. It is cheaper to run a car than catch public transport. (except the Link bus)
    4. Why would I want to spend time on a bus with Greenies??? (That’s if they really do catch them)

    My solutions are simple….
    1. Get rid of those fucking STUPID on-ramp lights.
    2. Stop all trucks going to the container wharf and rail everything to Otahuhu.
    3. For those that might catch a train or a bus make the fares $1 each way.
    4. Put bars on trains.
    5. The right hand lane of the motorway for passing only, $1000 fine if caught in them otherwise.
    6. Ban police from the motorways (at least sign written ones anyway). Ever noticed how the traffic comes to a stop when police are parked on the side?
    7. Make accidents on motorways illegal, $1000 fine for banging into someone.

    There, that should free up a few areas….. nice and simple.

  • probligo

    Yep, that makes as much sense as the intent of any of the other candied dates. In one simple word – nothing.

    The very big problem with Auckland public transport is that the candied dates have never gotten their heads around the fact that most there is only 10% of the workforce employed in Queen St. So, in their candied dated heads it is very sensible that all public transport is from Point A to Queen Street.

    Where, oh where is the person who will get a bus from (let’s say) Howick to Penrose direct in under two hours. Seem stupid? Look at the timetables. There is one service H to P in the morning, it takes about 100 minutes. There is one service in the evening P to H and it takes 90 minutes. Or try instead Mt Roskill to Te Atatu or Penrose. Or Onehunga to Rosebank Road.

    By car H to P takes 25 minutes at 8am, the same at 5:15 p.m. for the return. So double that for all the stops neccessary to get all of those passengers on board and you have still roughly halved the bus time, if it were arranged to go reasonably direct rather than a tiki-tour through three suburbs.

    At the same time, there are about 6 or 8 half empty express buses direct Howick to City, and about the same number half full going the long slow route.

    Why? Because most candied dates don’t have the brain to ask the obvious question.

  • toby

    The busway is not all that bad and I would probably use it more but for a few things.

    - Bus fares. Really not all that cheap. You have to be paying a ridiculous amount for parking before catching the bus makes financial sense.

    - Park n ride carparks are far too small. They fill up very quickly in the morning, well within the beginning of rush hour. The streets around the Albany bus station are full of cars parking anywhere they can. As I understand it, the reasoning behind having pathetically small parking lots at the Albany and Constellation Park n Rides is that they want to encourage people to catch a feeder bus to the station, rather than driving there. This might be sensible if not for the fact that feeder buses are few and far between outside of rush hour (you’re fucked if you work shifts) and are highly unreliable.

    Whilst I am a happy private commuter (and have never bought into this nonsense idea that building more roads means more people will travel on the roads) I think public transport should be made as attractive an option as possible. We have a lot of people north of the bridge and urban sprawl means it is growing. All methods of moving people around should be given support.

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