Hard to get to shooting

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33445, 29 January 1974, Page 2

Hard to get to shooting

Special buses will run to the Games shooting at Yaldhurst on Thursday and Friday; other than this, shooting spectators who have no transport of their own will still have to rely on taxis.

There have been complaints of lack of public transport to the shooting venues at McLeans Island (8.5 miles from the city), West Melton (18 miles) and Yaldhurst (8 miles), but the chairman of the Games transport committee (Mr L. K. Laugesen) said yesterday the demand was so small that it was not possible to meet it. The general manager of the Christchurch Transport I Board (Mr M. G. Taylor) said that the shooting : venues were outside the area in which the board was licensed to run buses. Even if I this were not the case, the I board’s resources were already stretched to their limit. "ONLY 10 PER CENT" Mr Laugesen said that the Games committee had received complaints about a lack of transport, but it had estimated that only about 10 per cent of those going to the various venues wanted public transport. It had been found that ’many visitors went to I events with friends, using 'the same transport, and that in the case of shooting venues there would often be fewer than a dozen spectators wanting public transport. As well, they wouldnot all want transport at the same time. The special Midland Coachlines, Ltd, bus to Yaldhurst on Thursday will leave the company’s terminal at 9 a.m. and return at 2.30 p.m. On Friday, it will leave at 9 a.m. and return at 4 p.m., after the medal cere-: monies. COMPLAINT A Sydney visitor who complained to "The Press” about the lack of public

transport to shooting venues said that although the nor-1 mal Railways Road Services! bus to Fox Glacier passed Yaldhurst and West Melton, i neither the Road Services nor the Midland company! served McLeans Island. A taxi to McLeans Island! cost $4.10, he said. “Foreign visitors without local transport have been es-' pecially disadvantaged by this, with unredeemable tickets bought overseas,” the Sydney man, Mr G. D. Tritt, said in a letter. “A general warning to any still buying tickets should be given, and I hope they will mark this.”