A solitary trolley bus inbound from Kingston whined along Lambton Quay at 8.20pm tonight as I was waiting for my No 3 home. Its presence was clearly a mistake, as it was the only trolley in a procession of diesel buses running under the wires. It turned at Lambton Interchange and headed back up Lambton Quay showing “Sorry Not In Service.”
As usual, my 3 was a diesel. I haven’t seen a trolley on the 3 after 7pm for more than a year now. Ratepayers guarantee the bus company full recovery of diesel fuel price rises, so there is no incentive to run trolley buses, even though their use would cost ratepayers less.
But regardless of the motive power of the bus, the reason I catch the bus is because the service is so good, even after nightfall.
I’d been at a late work meeting, and given the hour, many others there had ordered taxis home. I thought it would be faster to catch the bus. And it was. One of my colleagues, who lives one bus stop before mine and who I last saw waiting for a taxi, had not got home when my bus went past her darkened home.
As usual, this evening bus (which I caught at 8.25pm), was so well patronised that almost every seat was taken. Some nights, especially Fridays and Saturdays, so many people use the buses that they leave the city with full standing loads. Only in Wellington.
- Update Thursday night: My two near-neighbour work colleagues who waited for a shared taxi home to our suburb last night told me today they did not get home till around 10pm, after the ordered taxi finally turned up. That was more than an hour after I got home on the No 3 bus. The message is clear. Why take a taxi and pay $30, $40, $50 or even more, when you can catch a reliable bus for vastly, vastly less? For women alone, the taxi has only the driver. The bus will usually have the driver and dozens of other passengers. No contest, I say.
16 Comments
June 26, 2008 at 7:31 am
Its a shame the same can’t be said for the trains, it took me an hour to get from Ava to Wellington yesterday and the same on Monday. They have consistently been late far too often and a heads up to GW falls on deaf ears.
I was on the understanding that Greater Wellington only paid for services which were on time +/- 10 mins.
June 26, 2008 at 7:43 am
I was on the understanding that Greater Wellington only paid for services which were on time +/- 10 mins.
Good point. I covered this in April, when I got statistics from Greater Wellington that claimed buses ran to time 99.7pc of the time. As a daily bus user I knew this was nonsense:
http://poneke.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/bus-3/
And guess what? It is up to bus drivers and the bus company to report if a bus is more than 10 minutes late or does not run. Do turkeys vote for an early Christmas?
Almost every day, buses simply do not turn up on my route… and one notices, because you get to know what bus driven by which driver is meant to arrive. Multiply my route by all the others. I simply do not believe the statistics.
What is needed is GPS in every bus and train so late running and non-running can clearly be established independently of the operators.
June 26, 2008 at 8:14 am
“Ratepayers guarantee the bus company full recovery of diesel fuel price rises, so there is no incentive to run trolley buses, even though their use would cost ratepayers less.”
With this kind of subsidy is it any surprise that buses are so popular ?
June 26, 2008 at 10:05 am
Dear Po
Very gentlemanly of you to share a cab with your colleague.
cheers
Ho
June 26, 2008 at 10:11 am
I think the new Snapper system relies on GPS doesn’t it?
June 26, 2008 at 11:24 am
The 6.30 a.m. bus from Kingston (a diesel) was full by the time it reached the bottom of Brooklyn hill this morning. There wasn’t any more standing room and it would have been a long, cold wait for the next bus if anyone else had tried to get on. That’s the first time I’ve seen it so full. Perhaps people really are swapping cars for public transport after all.
There are some Kingston buses (and drivers) that can reliably be counted on to be ten to fifteen minutes late every day. I’m sure THOSE drivers aren’t reporting their lateness each time!
June 26, 2008 at 1:22 pm
I live just south of Massey and it’s often faster to walk from downtown than to catch the bus. I’ve had one case in particular where I really paid for my laziness. Now, the only time I’ll wait for a 10/11 is if the weather is crappy or I’m carrying something awkward to walk with.
I’ve always wondered what clock the buses are meant to sync to. The display on my 84 this morning (at 7:20-ish) was showing 23:54 when I boarded. The GPS option allows for better regularity, tracking/dispatching and stats collection. I just find it shocking that this is 2008 and the bus companies are just starting to get themselves sorted out.
June 26, 2008 at 10:35 pm
poneke,
stagecoach/GO have been trying to get GPS in the buses for almost two years – the unions keep opposing it as a breach of privacy.
June 27, 2008 at 11:31 am
I was on the understanding that Greater Wellington only paid for services which were on time +/- 10 mins.
While the late running stats are a joke, at least there are some. When I complained the GWRC that the peak buses heading north were often full by the time they reached the major stop at the railway station, they confirmed they do not collect any information on buses who fail to pick up passengers. Their only source of information on a lack of bus capacity seems to be customer complaints !
[Poneke says: You should catch the train then.]
June 27, 2008 at 3:44 pm
[Poneke says: You should catch the train then.]
Firstly, the train to Johnsonville takes 21 minutes whereas the evening bus usually achieves it’s schedule time of 16 minutes (one reason the evening bus is is full by the time it gets to the railway station is the promise of a quicker trip home).
Secondly, this problem also affects those travelling to Newlands/Grenada Village/Woodridge and the train simply doesn’t go there (don’t you know?)
June 27, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Secondly, this problem also affects those travelling to Newlands/Grenada Village/Woodridge and the train simply doesn’t go there (don’t you know?)
The Johnsonville railway line should be converted to light rail, and extended at its northern end on-street into Newlands, and at its southern end through the CBD to Newtown and the airport.
June 27, 2008 at 5:25 pm
The Johnsonville railway line should be converted to light rail, and extended at its northern end on-street into Newlands, and at its southern end through the CBD to Newtown and the airport.
It already takes 21 minutes to get to Johnsonville by train now and Light Rail will not be any quicker. Even assuming a way (and $Ms) could be found to have tracks cross the motorway and some of the busiest roads in Wellington, up and over the steep (for rail) hill called Stewart Drive and into Newlands, this extra 2.1km trip would take at least 5 minutes.
AND, of course, for most people (Grenada, Woodridge, Paparangi and most of Newlands), would still have to catch a bus to actually get home !!!
Why would a commuter take a tram that takes 26 minutes to get to Newlands when the bus gets them there in 16 minutes ?
June 28, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Why would a commuter take a tram that takes 26 minutes to get to Newlands when the bus gets them there in 16 minutes ?
I have travelled on modern trams all over the world. They are vastly faster than buses. Not only is their commercial speed faster than a bus, their multiple doors make for vastly quicker boarding and leaving than a bus. Their acceleration rates are massively superior to a bus. They can operate with high effectiveness in any terrain or urban environment, whether on streets or on railway alignments. They can get up the steepest hills and round the tightest corners with an ease that defeats a diesel bus, as a tram follows a track. The tortuous tram lines in Graca in Lisbon could never be operated by buses as buses could not get round such streets. Similarly the wide straight streets of Melbourne are an endless procession of heavily patronised trams whose ever-increasing patronage is because of the sheer attractiveness to users of these modern vehicles.
The mild hills up to Newlands from Johnsonville are well within the easy capabilities of modern trams, half-way between the extremes of Lisbon and Melbourne I have cited.
June 29, 2008 at 9:22 am
I have traveled on modern trams all over the world. They are vastly faster than buses.
Thanks for the sales pitch . . . I am sure they can also leap tall buildings and catch bullets in their teeth.
So how about actually answering the question you even took the trouble to quote at the top of your spiel ? To help you, here it is again:
Why would a commuter take a tram that takes 26 minutes to get to Newlands when the bus gets them there in 16 minutes ?
June 29, 2008 at 10:21 am
Tony, I did. The multiple doors, huge capacity and extemely high acceleration rates of modern trams leave lumbering, noisy, fume-belching, low capacity diesel buses far behind in their quiet slipstream.
I can suggest you visit any number of progressive cities to see modern trams in action, but start with Melbourne (route 96 is a stunner and the equivalent of the Johnsonville line as it was a short, slow, rundown electric railway converted to light rail and extended on street at either end; the new five-section, 300-passenger Citadis trams introduced on the 96 this month are the best in the entire world and will reinforce its growth that has made it Melbourne’s busiest tram line, out of more than 30 routes); Athens, Rome, Zurich, Geneva, Lyon, San Francisco (all also have trolley buses too, which are superior to filthy diesel buses); Vienna, Amsterdam, Manchester, Sheffield, Paris, Barcelona, Montpellier… I could list you scores more, and nominate particularly relevant routes in each that you could compare to your wonderful fume-belching diesel bus struggling up the gorge to Johnsonville. But I am sure you don’t care, so feel free to keep catching your bus.
June 30, 2008 at 12:49 pm
. . . that you could compare to your wonderful fume-belching diesel bus struggling up the gorge to Johnsonville. But I am sure you don’t care, so feel free to keep catching your bus.
I tried to contribute to this discussion by highlighting that the GWRC does not capture any stats when buses are full, a problem felt across Wellington.
I am not prepared to debate the merits of the current 3rd class service (that I use but do not support) against your pipe dream of light rail. I do believe that Bus Rapid Transit is also a viable solution to improve Wellington PT.
However, I am disappointed with the zealousness with which you seem to respond to the possibility that your future vision has not convinced me. I can only but paraphrase the relevant comments from someone you know well:
But just because I am sceptical about the extremist views does not make me a wanton abuser of the planet, which the facilitator painted me by association. I am very supportive of having a clean environment, air, land and sea, and I don’t want to see pollutants poured out into it. I don’t waste power or petrol — I have used and actively supported improved public transport for many years now
…
I was reminded graphically of US president George W Bush’s declaration after September 11: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” It was a statement that left no middle ground or even other choices.
“You either believe in Light Rail public transport, or you love lumbering, noisy, fume-belching, low capacity diesel buses .” This is equally an insane position to be taking, the opposite of scientific rigour which is to put forward a theory and test and test and test it.