EXTRA BUS SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 70, 15 December 1933, Page 12

EXTRA BUS SERVICE

Lower Hutt-Eastbourne APPLICATION REFUSED Dominion Special Service. Palmerston North, December 14. An application by the Railway Department to conduct a Sunday bus service between Lower Hutt and Eastbourne met with strenuous opposition from the Eastbourne Borough Council at the sitting of No. 6 Transport Licensing Authority in Palmerston North yesterday. The application was refused.

It was stated that the department operated 30 buses on the WellingtonHutt service and catered for 14,003 people, who paid 1/- to secure a connection with the Eastbourne service. The distance between Lower Hutt and Day’s Bay was 8.3 miles, and it was proposed to charge a flat rate of 1/6 return for adults and half-fare for children aged 3 to 12 years. The department would undertake not to pick up any passengers on the return journey who did not have a ticket issued from Lower Hutt., Mr. O. L. Bishop, town clerk of Eastbourne, opposed the application on tna grounds that the present service was adequate for the district and that other buses would only create competition that was unwarranted, with duplication that the Act was designed to prevent. . „ Mr. E. W. Wise, Mayor of Eastbourne, said that the borough council relied on Sundays and holiday traffic to compensate them for dead running during the week. For the department, Mr. Doyle, bus manager, argued that the Eastbourne service could not cater for 28,003 people. , , Mr. Wise, in reply to the said that in the event of the department’s application being turned dowoj his council would be prepared to consider fitrourably the extension of the present service to provide a connection for Lower Hutt residents, if that weraj necessary. Mr. Doyle said there had been _ noend of requests from Lower Hutt people for this service, which was to cost them 1/6 as against the present cost of 2/6. It was stretching the imagination to say that the servica would be duplicated.