Cheap Christmas bus fares still the ticket, despite no council vote

Wellingtonians were delivered a $400,000 Christmas present in the form of cheap bus fares before either the city or regional councils had formally voted on whether to spend the ratepayer cash.

Greater Wellington Regional Council announced last week that fares would be reduced on almost all Wellington CBD bus routes on weekends prior to Christmas Day, with one-zone adult trips to cost just $1.

The idea was designed to help out Wellington businesses given 3000 city car parks are out of commission following the magnitude 7.8 earthquake on November 14.

The plan was for regional ratepayers to chip in $200,000 and Wellington City ratepayers to come up with another $200,000 to subside the bus fares.

But while commuters have already enjoyed one weekend of discounts, Wellington City Council has yet to approve its share of the cost. Its city strategy committee will meet today to debate the issue.

The regional council, meanwhile, is not planning to vote at all. Chairman Chris Laidlaw said his councillors had all been spoken to and they were comfortable with spending the ratepayer cash.

‘‘We’ve agreed to it, and my expectation is the city council will do so also. That’s the agreement we have with them.’’

If the city council did not approve its share of the funding, the regional council would continue the promotion anyway, he said. When asked if that meant regional ratepayers from Wellington, Hutt

‘‘It does seem a little like putting the cart before the horse and taking for granted that the council will support it.’’ City councillor Andy Foster

Valley, Porirua, Kapiti and Wairarapa would end up subsidising the capital’s weekend buses to the tune of $400,000, Laidlaw said: ‘‘You could probably draw that inference.’’

‘‘This all happened very quickly and I understand that rush. We thought this was the right thing to do in the runup to Christmas.’’

City councillor Andy Foster said it was surprising and not the greatest example of process to publicly announce the cheaper fares before all councillors had been informed.

‘‘It does seem a little like putting the cart before the horse and taking for granted that the council will support it.’’

It was questionable whether the idea was the best way to help businesses. Last Christmas, the city council spent $160,000 on subsidised fares, which only led to a 10 per cent increase in CBD bus users.

Foster also pointed out the $200,000 of ratepayer cash that will go towards the cheaper fares, would have been otherwise used to keep the rates down next year.

The decision to proceed with the fare subsidy was taken after Laidlaw discussed it with Wellington Mayor Justin Lester and got his support.

Lester did not want to comment yesterday, referring questions to councillor Chris Calvi-Freeman, who holds the transport strategy and operations portfolio.

Calvi-Freeman said the process has been ‘‘entirely logical’’ given a lot of Wellington businesses had been hit hard by the earthquake and were concerned about a downturn.

‘‘The mayor doesn’t have time to consult with every councillor on everything at the moment.’’