Sundays on the buses

Press, 12 June 1987, Page 16

Sundays on the buses

Long gone are the days when Sunday outings in Christchurch meant hundreds of families setting but by tram for parks and beaches. Buses have replaced the trams; and private cars have replaced the buses as the means to a Sunday jaunt for most people. A recent survey by the Christchurch Transport Board found that only 5300 passengers used the 350 trips provided by the board on Sundays — an average of about 15 passengers a trip; Even that figure is deceptive; on at least 10 of the board’s 24 Sunday routes patronage is so poor that the board has been tempted to cancel the services.

A city the size of Christchurch can hardly be left without public transport on Sundays. Services have been whittled away over the years so that only the bare bones remain. As a result, most people hardly think of using public transport on Sundays if other means of travel are available. Many communities face this dilemma — the poorer the public transport system, the less likely it is to be - used. But there remains a portion of the community that has no alternative to public transport In a survey on one route recently, for instance, the Transport Board found three-quarters of its passengers were students, unemployed people, or elderly people.

In fairness, it must be said that the board has no intention of stopping all Sunday services, or even a large proportion of them. Its object is to find the most economic way to give an adequate service, without further burdening the ratepayers who already pay at least a third of the true cost of every bus journey. Two options are being considered. One proposal would use much smaller buses, but still follow set routes and timetables; the other would be a kind of taxi-bus service in which intending passengers telephoned for a mini-bus that might take a little time to arrive and would still follow a fixed route fairly closely.

If a dial-a-bus system became popular, it might bring complaints from taxi proprietors. Subsidised mini-buses offering a door-to-door service would hardly be accepted as fair competition by taxi-drivers who have to charge much higher fares. A compromise might be found, perhaps through co-operation between taxi companies and the Transport Board. The board meanwhile has to strike a balance .between two deserving groups in the community: those who have no other means of transport on Sundays; and the ratepayers who have to pay the price of providing any Sunday services.