Bus service to cost $12,000

Press, 25 February 1987, Page 9

Bus service to cost $12,000

The Christchurch Transport Board will spend an extra $12,000 a year to bring one bus stop back into service. The stop, on Wilsons Road, was lost when two bus routes were amalgamated in December, 1984. The reintroduction of the stop will add another 1200 m to Route 12, the St Martins-Huntsbury service. The board’s general manager, Mr Max Taylor, said the extra distance a trip added up to 28,000 km a year, and would cost the board $12,000. He said he felt there was no justification for the change as the cost would not in any way be recouped. The change in route was recommended by the customer service committee of the board after hearing from residents in Wilsons Road at their

meeting earlier this month. One resident of Wilsons Road, Mr R. H. Whitley, had told the committee that many people, particularly the elderly, had been inconvenienced since the route had been changed to miss their stretch of Wilsons Road. The committee recommended that the Huntsbury via St Martins route go all the way along Wilsons Road to the roundabout at Armstrong Street before doubling back and resuming the route at Gamblins Road. A proposed compromise, a loop round Koromiko Street and Ngaio Street, was scrapped after residents in Ngaio Street objected and the City Council said it would have to improve the street first. Mr Whitley had led a one-man campaign against the board on this

matter, said Mr Taylor at the board’s meeting yesterday. “$12,000 to silence one man’s protest at the removal of one bus stop is not worth it,” he said.

However, board members disagreed and accepted the proposal to reinstate the bus stop. The matter will now go before the Transport Licensing Authority for approval.