THE KELBURN BUS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 47, 23 August 1930, Page 10

THE KELBURN BUS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —So the Bowen street-Kelburn bus service is to be discontinued, on the ground that it does not pay. It may seriously be questioned whether any determined effort has ever been made to make it pay. Its upper terminus was ill-chosen, being barely two minutes' waik away from a tramline winch runs by another route to the same place, Lambton quay. The service is thus thrown into almost direct competition with another means of public transport which occupies practically the same time for the journey, offers a much more frequent time-table, and charges for the trip exactly half the cash fare of the bus, or slightly more than half if concession cards are used in both cases. Its lower terminus was ill-chosen. On downward trips the bus begins to shed passengers as soon as Wellington terrace is reached, and arrives at the corner of Bowen street and Lambton quay nearly empty, suggesting that for a majority of its passengers a terminus nearer the centre of the city, say, the corner of Boulcott I street and Willis street, would have'been more convenient. On upward trips, similarly, a substantial portion of the load is picked up as tho bus travels along The Terrace. Between its termini, the route is illchosen. Instead of running from start to finish by the straightest course, it follows the longest and most circuitous route possible, winding in and out round every spur of southern Kelburn, and adding appreciably to the time and cost of every trip. It is a general experience in public transport problems that the way traffic picked up by deviation never pays for the loss of terminal traffic and the extra cost of the lengthened journey. Even with these disadvantages, it is hard to see why the service did not pay. There is probably no other municipal bus service in Wellington that offers so short a run for the same fare; that is, the fare charged is higher than on any other route. This notwithstanding, I have found the bus, more often than not, with every seat filled, besides strap-hangers, {sometimes to a cumber that would probably have produced a prosecution if the service had been in any other hands than those of the City Council. It is true that it suffered from a lack of back-loading; but this is a disadvantage common to every suburban service in the district. It would be interesting if you could find out for your readers what average number of seats per trip must be filled before a bus service is declared to pay. It would also be interesting if any member of the City Council could tell us how far the service has been charged with wages and overhead charges for standing time caused by fixing a time-table that would neither permit the bus to run continuously (with proper spells for the driver) on this route nor to sandwich its trips with runs in some other direction. Had here been any genuine attempt to build up a useful and paying service, the lower terminus would have been fixed at some nearer and more central point, such as is suggested above; the bus would have run to its upper'terminus by the straightest route, Glasgow street and Upland road; the shorter trip would have justified a lower fare, and if it had been desired to occupy the same running time, the route could have been extended, not parallel to the Karori tram line, but at right angles to it, in the direction oi Highbury, thus tapping a locality which enjoys no system of public transport to create competition. Perhaps it is not yet too late to hope that this course may be considered. —I am, etc., WIDSITH.