The Post

Get it right on buses

-

Wellington’s gridlock over major transport projects is wearying. Even the group formed to talk through the Basin Reserve flyover saga has now repeatedly delayed its suggestion­s for an alternativ­e. Understand­ably, one regional councillor fears it has become a ‘‘talkfest’’. The bulldozers look a long way off.

Yet even so, it is more important that the transport planners make the right decisions than the quickest or easiest ones. Crucially, that means ensuring a topdrawer public transport system.

So it was dispiritin­g to hear regional councillor Paul Swain jump all over Let’s Get Wellington Moving programme director Barry Mein for suggesting a close look at plans for a supposedly transforma­tive new transport mode – Bus Rapid Transit.

Mein’s group has hired an engineerin­g firm to check if the Bus Rapid Transit route might be future-proofed for light rail.

Swain said that was ‘‘totally inappropri­ate’’ and ‘‘this horse has bolted’’. That is apparently because of new citywide bus routes, due to be launched next year, which have been designed around the still-nebulous rapid-transit scheme.

But not so fast. When did the horse bolt? The last time the public heard anything about Bus Rapid Transit, arguably a more important project than tweaking the routes, was almost two years ago.

The ‘‘indicative’’ case released then was disappoint­ingly unambitiou­s. One proposal was not Bus Rapid Transit at all – which is supposed to involve high-capacity, multiple-entry buses on separated lanes – but something much more like the city’s current, halting service. It looked like the usual capitulati­on to budget fears that never seem to quite apply to plans for major roads.

A ‘‘detailed business case’’ was due to arrive 12 months later, with modelling of the effects on specific streets and a chance for public feedback. But that has been as delayed as everything else, it seems.

In the mean time, Wellington­ians have chosen new regional councillor­s sympatheti­c to light rail, famously promised by former mayor Celia Wade-Brown but then ditched after the 2013 study concluded it would cost too much. Even chairman Chris Laidlaw has spoken about protecting a ‘‘corridor for light rail in the future’’.

Cost still probably precludes building light rail right now; the 2013 study was meant to be the definitive one. But how expensive would it be to leave the option open? It would be helpful – and perhaps prescient – to find out.

This is a city deeply sympatheti­c to public transport. It has unusually high patronage numbers, and has voted for politician­s that make ambitious promises about it. But it still doesn’t have a public transport system to match.

The talkfest does need to come to an end – and soon. But that does not mean settling on a half-pie new bus service.

Just as many Wellington motorists are disappoint­ed they are still stuck in traffic at the Basin Reserve, so many bus passengers are eager to get out of a clogged Golden Mile and onto the impressive system they were promised.

Wellington deserves an excellent bus service.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from New Zealand