Urban buses receive grants

Press, 15 April 1980, Page 6

Urban buses receive grants

PA Wellington The Cabinet yesterday approved urban passenger grants for urban bus operators for te 1980-81 year. The grants were expected to cost $3.96 million for the year, said the Minister of Transport (Mr McLachlan). Local authorities will be subsidised at the rate of $2O per 10,000 passenger kilometres, and private operators $36 per 10,000 pasesnger kilometres. This is expected to cost $1,846,000 for the year. For night and week-end bus kilometres, local authorities will receive $l2 per 100 and private operators $22 per 100 at a total estimated cost of $1,309,000. Peak buses, except those run by the Auckland Regional Authority, the Wellington City Council, the Christ-

church Transport Board, and the Dunedin City Council, will be subsidised at the rate of $6OO per bus for local authorities and $lOBO per bus for private operators. The estimated value of this subsidy is $500,000.

The matching subsidy for grants paid by local authorities for services other than their own will remain on a one-to-one basis, at an estimated cost of $300,000 for the year. • Expenditure on the urban passenger grants for the 197980 year was expected to be just under $3.5 million, Mr McLachlan said.

The general manager of the Christchurch Transport Board (Mr M. G. Taylor)/estimates that the board’s buses would travel a total distance of about 60 million'passenger kilometres in the year. :