PETITION SIGNED

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 58, Issue 4226, 16 December 1949, Page 6

PETITION SIGNED

BETTER BUS SERVICE KARANGAHAKE-PAEROA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE HELP “ It is felt that the bus service from Karangahake to Paeroa is inadequate and some improvement is sought and to this end a petition has been circulated and a number qf signatures obtained,” was a statement placed before the November meeting of the Paeroa Chamber of Commerce. Those signing the petition sought the help of the Paeroa chamber and stated that the workers’ 'bus reaching Paeroa at 8.20 a.m. was so overcrowded that a number of passengers was often compelled to wait for a service car. There was a bus from Paeroa to Waihi at 10.30 a.m. by which shoppers could travel from Karangahake to Waihi at a convenient time, do their shopping and return to Karanga. hake at 12.45 p.m. No sueh convenient service to Paeroa was available.

The petition went on to state that at 10.15 a.m. a bus did pass through Karangahake to Paeroa but it only picked up passengers at the <Mver*s discretion. What was required was a bus through Karangahake to Paeroa at about 9.30 a.m. which would reduce the congestion on the workers’ bus and provide a more convenient timetable.

Forty-seven people of Karangahake had signed the petition, said Mr A. C. Boulton, president of the chamber, and they should be supported in their request.

Against the request was Mr G. Dent who expressed the view that the people of Karangahake were well catered for in the way of bus services. Mr G. E. Button related his experiences with regard to the timetable and said that the local buses seldom ran to schedule time. There was to his knowledge a real difficulty as set out in the petition. Mr R. Jeffrey suggested that as passengers were picked up at the discretion of drivers the manager of the N.Z. Road. Services should be approached and requested to instruct drivers to .pick up all passengers. The matter was not quite as simple as that, stated Mr Boulton, who pointed out that many people wishing to use the buses did not live on the bus route and bad to travel distances on the off chance of being picked up and they would not risk that. A request from so many people should not be ignored by the chamber. Mr L. Ziegler said that he knew many of the Karangahake people and the buses to Paeroa were so inconvenient that they did not permit the Karangahake residents to proceed to Paeroa to see an afternoon screening of any film and as a result they all went to Waihi. A resolution was finally carried that the manager of N.Z. Road Services be approached with the view of securing a more convenient service to Paeroa from Karangahake.