Govt’s public transport discount sure ain’t no joke
From this Friday, April 1, all public transport in the Wellington region will receive the Government’s recently announced 50 per cent discount.
No, it’s no April Fool’s Day trick. It’s genuine, and a very welcome financial reprieve to people.
However, when first announced, I immediately realised that the Capital Connection passengers would not benefit from the subsidy.
Most people probably didn’t realise the Capital Connection has never been subsidised by government, unlike every other form of public transport in our country.
Thankfully, the service will now be included in the temporary discount regime, with much advocacy and discussion between ourselves at GWRC, Horizons Council and with support from Labour MPs to the Minister of Transport.
But I hope that if the government supports the GWRC Budget bid for new trains to replace the Capital Connection, which is currently with Treasury and Government, it will also
support our request to bring the service into our Metlink network and therefore the fares will have long-term subsidy security.
Come Budget Day in May, I’ll be awaiting the hoped-for good news that our Budget bid is successful and we have at long last secured the critical passenger service between Palmerston North and Wellington.
So in the meantime, Wellington region’s Metlink will run half-price fares for ferry, train, bus and total mobility services from Friday.
The Metlink team has worked closely with operators to make the transition as smooth as possible for passengers but there might be teething issues given the very short lead-in
time we have had to implement the Government’s announcement.
For the majority of our passengers on buses and ferries the changes should be seamless with Snapper and cash fares being adjusted in time. However, paper tickets and multiple-trip tickets on rail are more complicated but I want to reassure passengers they won’t be out of pocket as we work out the kinks.
Obviously, Covid-19 continues to put a strain on the availability of our amazing frontline staff so we’re hoping that people will continue to understand the impact that Covid-19 is having on our network at the moment, including with an increase in unplanned cancellations as a result of staff absenteeism.