Dunedin bus drivers deserve congratulations
MAY I convey my fullest admiration for our city bus drivers who, apart from receiving inadequate remuneration, are having to cope with the chaotic road works in the city streets — which appear neverending — and the most errant and stupid car drivers determined to add to this headache our bus drivers encounter daily.
However, none of the complimentary views apply to the Otago Regional Council or the Dunedin City Council because we have bus shelters that are not fit for purpose. In many of these, if we sit in them, the view of oncoming buses is totally obliterated.
Then there is the unacceptable and farcical delay in reinstating a permanent stop at the Gardens Corner. This is causing major difficulties for every bus user, but especially the disabled and elderly.
It is most unfortunate that the selfserving complaints of store owners and managers were even given consideration by the ORC when it removed the bus stop outside the SPCA store and the adjacent florist many months ago.
Meanwhile, all regular bus users have suffered in adverse weather carrying supermarket purchases to faraway stops.
The explanations of the ORC on this matter are insulting and delays most concerning.
Clive McNeill North East Valley
WITH the alarming rise in antisocial activity in our country, you would think the Labour Government would have realised that you can’t fix falling popularity in the polls by just giving another holiday that someone else pays for.
More leisure time is not what the people need, certainly not the people Labour are supposed to represent. What Labour’s people need is a productive and dignified alternative to a life of daytoday survival on social welfare handouts.
Adding to the counterproductive and futile awarding of yet another holiday is the cynicism of delaying it until a week after the Queen’s funeral solely to give our prime minister the opportunity to attend yet another job interview at the United Nations in New York and be back for the media profile opportunity of whatever official celebration is being planned.
All of us wishing to engage with the Queen’s funeral will have watched it live on TV, and by the time the prime minister returns the people will have moved on with life, as you do after a funeral.
Labour is just completely out of touch.
Tony Collins Dalmore
Promises, promises
MICHAEL Woodhouse replies(ODT, 14.9.22) that the John Key government was committed to build the new Dunedin Hospital.
After nine years of promises at each election and, given the fact that there has only ever been one fourterm government in New Zealand, one can assume that the Key government actually had no intention to build.
Ian Davie
Careys Bay