TRANSPORT AND ROSKILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20338, 20 August 1929, Page 12

TRANSPORT AND ROSKILL.

Sir, —I notice that Mr. Munns has apparently touched a sensitive spot in the Auckland Transport Board. Some of us have tried to do this before, but unfortunately have failed to find that spot. I will just briefly state a few of the chief grievances that we have had to put up with since the privato buses were put out of commission. In the first place there is the matter of fares. We are only seven or eight miles out of town, yet it costs a working man or girl 9s per week to travel to and from Hillsborough and 10s per week to and from Waikowhai. There is no workers' concession available on this routo at all. I havo seen a letter which was handed to the Transport Board about two months ago drawing attention to this and asking for a concession on similar lines to the service to Blockhouse Bay, which is further away, but we have not heard of its fate yet. We are, for some unknown reason, penalised on this route with two threepenny sections. The fare to the Buckland Road terminus is 6d cash, but if one requires to ride one more section ho has to pay 9d. Another illustration of this: If I want to ride from Hillsborough into Buckland Road or the Onehunga end of The Drive, two. sections, I am charged 6d. Any sane person will at onco see that this is ridiculous—thp bus drivers themselves feel almost robbers when they take the money. Now for tho running of tho buses. The timetable allows for three trips out, 6.15 a.m., 7.15 a.m., 9.15 a.m., and tu-o inward, ,4.50 p.m., 6.50 p.m. This means that if a person wishes to visit a friend at Waikowhai or district the last bus they can travel by is the 9.15 a.m. from town, and (lie first bus they can return by is at 4.50 p.m.; all right, perhaps, for a lady with a servant, but very inconvenient to tho ordinary woman who has to get home to prepare a dinner for a husband and family. The district, we know, does not require an all-day service, nothing liko it; what it needs is t a few buses run to suit the requirements' of the district, not run <o suit tho working of the staff. Ono instance is tho outward bus for Waikowhai at 5.45 p.m. Ninety per cent., or probably more, of working people leave work at 5 p.m. Why do we havo to wait till a quarter to six before wo can leave town'! The Waikowhai service is only an extension of (lie Buckland Road route; why cannot the 5..15 p.m. Buckland Road bus bo run to Waikowhai and save people waiting about for three-quar-ters of *m hour? Mr. Munns is quite right in what he says: with transport conditions such as ours, how can people be expected to go out to the suburbs ? Ours is not the only district affected, others also have suffered to a more or less degree. I do not wish to open up a discussion, as the subject has been well thrashed before. 1 only hopo that this publication will help to improve our transport conditions. E. A.. Giundrod. Hillsborough.