PUBLIC TRANSPORT WOES

I would very much like to respond to Lila Pitcher (20 October) on ‘‘an ode to anything but cars’’.

While I wholeheartedly agree with what Lila has written and enjoy traveling to work and back by bus, at this time the practicality of using the public bus service is almost non-existent.

I moved here from London 61⁄2 years ago and have no regrets. London has a great, not perfect by all means, public transport system, a bus at the end of the road, an underground tube system that gets you from one side of London to the other in about 45/50 minutes and from one end of the country to the other by the rail system. New Zealand is slightly behind with its transport system and I would have assumed it would grow as the population of New Zealand is growing, but oh no, this is not happening.

The past four weeks, moving into week five now, have caused so much stress it is unbelievable.

Let me start . . . I live in One Tree Hill, where there is bus service 295. I need to get to work in the CBD by 7.30am daily. The 295 bus seems to have cancelled the peak time bus travel for both morning and evening, often cancelling up to six buses at a time. Now you have to wait up to 30 minutes between each bus time and then still not guaranteed the bus is going to turn up, this becomes very frustrating and upsetting. Two Thursdays ago after a hectic work day, I got to the bus stop in the CBD to find four buses cancelled, I sat there and cried. I am a professional person but could not get home from work. I do plan my work bus routes for any cancellations, which often then results in a 40-minute walk