Carbon footprint of our buses ‘yeti-sized’

So councillor David Bennett has noticed empty buses trundling around our fair town. But what has he done about it?

I have twice made submissions to Horizons Regional Council, who organise our bus service and charge Whanganui people rates to make up the substantial losses.

The only response I got was: “Do you think that more people would use the buses if they were free?” I don’t believe that patronage would increase, because the buses simply do not take us where we want to go.

When I had a minor eye operation and could not drive, I would have had to walk a kilometre to the nearest bus stop, be taken into the city centre to wait for another bus to the hospital and repeat the exercise on the return trip. This is ridiculous.

I suggested to Horizons there were technologies to make their bus services more flexible and useful but that seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

A British survey found a bus needs to have 13 passengers to be carbon neutral. The negative carbon footprint of Horizons’ buses must be yeti-sized.

We have two Whanganui “representatives” on Horizons, and I have not heard of them protesting about this farce or the introduction of additional empty bus services. They apparently accept bureaucrats’ unbelievable passenger statistics without question.

Whanganui District Council and our Horizons members should be protesting against this costly travesty. Perhaps Cr Bennett will lead the charge. STEPHEN PALMER

Bastia Hill