School term start for altered bus service

AN altered Otago Peninsula bus service is set to start at the beginning of the next school year despite bus hub delays, the Otago Regional Council says.

Minor changes to routes on the peninsula, which were pushed for by the public to allow safer trips for school pupils, had been planned to align with the opening of the bus hub in Great King St.

However, it is now forecast the hub will become operational in early March, after the school term starts.

ORC public transport team leader Julian Phillips said the council understood the need for the peninsula service to start before the hub was complete.

‘‘We are actively working towards having the peninsula variation in place to align with the start of the school term.

‘‘We are working on getting the online timetables [and] street timetables updated and the bus drivers trained.’’

Otago Peninsula Community Board chairman Paul Pope said the service changes were a long time coming.

‘‘We’ve waited so long. It’s taken such a long time to get to this and what we were asking wasn’t that hard to implement.

‘‘However, I guess it’s not a perfect world and we have to get on with it.’’

Ultimately, the peninsula would have a better bus service for pupils busing into town, he said.