CITY COUNCIL BUSES

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 143, 21 June 1927, Page 8

CITY COUNCIL BUSES

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—Will you please allow- me space to air a grievance I have, together with many others, against the City Cou&cil's management of our buses. We wish and demand to know why the officers concerned persist in doing their utmost to run the buses off the road. In every manner possible are the buses run to cater for the least number of people, to give the council an excuse for removing them altogether. Take one run in particular—Lyall Bay— every conceivable method has been tried to prevent the public making full use of. the buses. No time-table has ever been in operation so that, .should too many people use the buses the times-and places of departure and arrival can, at a moment s notice, be altered to some less convenient time and place to suit the councils object of humbugging the people. The object is obvious-to force everyone on to already, overflowing tram cars. By what stretch of the imagination can the council determine on definite amounts as Losses on Buses," when it has had no means of knowing how much was made or lost? l<or a year the buses were taking passengers on tram concession tickets, the sale of these t lC kets being credited to tram'revenue, and the council has the effrontery to tell the-public that there is a loss on the buses. It knows, while it announces the amount, that it is incorrect. It knows (and must think the public *%*.*? k f n°W) i hat these announcements are so far from the truth as to be absurd. This m galling enough, but what is worse v that after having paid for the.buses the ivorst use is being made of them, and this purposely. The public wants buses" tlie council does not; therefore it arranges the running to inconvenience users ?LT™ if p°ssibleA Tak= as an instance the 4.30 bus from Government Buildings. This is arranged so that it leaves just too soon to get all those-people who desire to use it. But listen! Leaving at 4.30 ; sharp is not the worst feature, because some of us hurry out and catch it. The management has "put one over on us" by instructing the drivers not to go beyond Kilbirnie When protests were made against this, the excuse was offered that the bus was required at Evans Bay slip but as the bus ran to the slip for a while S- l.1?. all. last week raP back to town from Kilbirnie and is again going to the slip, is it not another effort to cripple this particular service? The bus has time to run irom terminus to terminus as any sane person would have it do, and then go to the slip rf necessary. Why run empty to Kilbirnie just because it may have to go to the slip? Why not run full to Lyall ■Bay.' The council does not desire to see the buses with their big loads of passengers that they used to have while competing with the private concern. The council desired full Joads and got them. The dense queues which used to wait and fight their way into the buses should be sufficient evidence of the desire on the part of the public to use the buses, the reason of any apparent loss of desire beiiuj only the people's disgust at the methods practised against them, the extra penny per fare having nothing to do with the poor patronage. The council will sell you as many Lyall Bay bus cards as you like, but it may not take you there. The bus may or may not be required elsewhere, Insre never having been any time-table no one knows "what's what" where our own buses are concerned. We now demand that the council desists from its policy of humbugging us with the bus service, and give us, say, one year's running at hours to suit, so that the cry cannot again be raised that "the buses do not pay. As far as Lyall Bay is concerned, this can be done as follows:—Kun irom terminus to terminus, leave termini to suit the majority from town always from one locality, leave at definite times allowing at the city end time for the Government Buildings to empty itself of workers and not at exactly 4.30 (so that it may go empty), say seven to ten minutes after knock-off time, publish a time-tablo and stick to it, announce by. advertisement that concession tickets are'available, allow smoking in rear compartment if it is not against regulation (if co, cut it out). As the council has stated the fact that it is nine months behind in its tramcar building programme, should this not induce it to have the buses relieve the trains as much as possible duriug rush hours? I am, etc., JACQUES. 17th June.