Concern about bus route changes

MANY people are concerned about their bus routes changing, public feedback on the capital’s bus review has shown.

Submissions on Greater Wellington regional council’s proposed bus changes closed yesterday, with more than 4000 received over the past month.

In the first major review of the city’s network in about 20 years, every bus route is set to change under the council plans.

Proposals include about 10 per cent of passengers needing to change buses at new interchanges; the core route from Seatoun to the railway station bypassing the Golden Mile, instead looping onto The Terrace. Peak services could go along the waterfront to ease congestion.

Greater Wellington economic wellbeing committee chairman Peter Glensor said that, although submissions had just closed, it was already clear that several ‘‘big picture’’ issues had been raised.

One of those was concern about ‘‘hubbing’’ and how prompt and comfortable it would be for passengers changing to connecting buses.

The proposal involves implementing a transfer hub on the main road in Johnsonville, where users could be required to change to a new bus to get into central Wellington.

It was the subject of objection among 114 residents at the Johnsonville Progressive Association meeting last week.

But Mr Glensor said a huge number of submissions were simply questions about the impact of changes to individual and specific bus routes. One family even complained about the noise of latenight buses.

But there was no indication of any ‘‘fatal flaws’’ in the proposal.

‘‘My own sense is there are some very real complaints about the outer edges of the cities, and we need to address those,’’ Mr Glensor said.

Submissions would be analysed in the following months to identify the main issues and see how the plans could be modified accordingly.

But it would be a couple of years before any changes to the bus routes were implemented.