WAKARI BUS SERVICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26540, 15 August 1947, Page 9

WAKARI BUS SERVICE

Sir,—Wakari is puzzled! According to this morning’s Daily Times, there is to be an improvement in the Wakari bus service. A 12-minute service from 7.15 a.m. is to be replaced by a 15-minute service, with a feeder bus every half hour instead of every 24 minutes. We of Wakari are under the impression that this is very much the reverse of an improvement. Can Mr Greig not understand that it is buses direct to town we want? Why should the people have to stand at Bunting’s corner in the cold (and it is always cold there except in the middle of summer) waiting for buses when the buses could do, and previously have done, the round trip, taking the people straight to town without any changing and waste of time? It cannot be the lack of buses, as two of the old buses used to give a 20-minute direct service. We now have three of the new buses on this route, and I am given to understand on good authority that they should give a 121-minute through service to town, and with four buses at the peak periods, a 10-minute service. Why all this shilly-shallying on the part of the Transport Department? If the arrangement of a time table to meet the needs of the community is too difficult for them, there are folk here who can do it. Mr Greig says that there will be more improvements in the near future We fear that if he goes on in the same manner there will not be any service at all in the future.—l am. etc., E. V. Fay Lamond. August 12.

[When the above letter was referred to the chairman of the Transport Committee, Cr McCrae, he pointed out that the present service was just in its initial stages. “ I recognise,” he said, " that at the present time the service so far as the Wakari residents are concerned is far from satisfactory. The present feeder system has many advantages, but if the Wakari Ratepayers’ Association desires to return to the old time time, I have no doubt the Transport Committee would accede to its request.”—Ed., 0.D.T.l

Sir,—At present, in the slack periods, there are four buses meandering on the various routes between the Octagon and Wakari. Two of these buses ■do a 12minute service between the Octagon and Kaikorai Valley, via Littlebourne road. A third bus double-banks on the other two with a service every half-hour between the Octagon and Halfway Bush, via Tennyson street, York place, City road, and Taieri road. The fourth bus whiles away its time round the Wakari settlement, connecting alternately with a Halfway Bush bus or a Kaikorai Valley bus. In my opinion/ the City Council, in its lack of wisdom, has lost a golden opportunity to put on a service which is really worth while. With four buses available, what would be simpler than to use all four buses with a through service to Wakari, travelling via Littlebourne road, Highgate, and Taieri road as far as Kaikorai Valley, and thence, alternately, via Taieri road to Halfway Bush, and then round the Wakari settlement, returning via Chapman and Nairn streets to Kaikorai Valley, and vice versa. All four buses would travel through to Wakari, numbers one and three going round the Wakari settlement via Taieri road and Halfway Bush, and numbers two and four travelling via Chapman street and returning via Taieri road. All four buses would travel via Littlebourne road, and thus avoid double-banking as at present. In the busy periods these -buses could travel non-stop to Kaikorai Vallay or beyond, via >York place and City road, while extra buses Serving Kaikorai would travel via Littlebourne road every five, six, or eight minutes as at present. In this way Wakari could be brought, at the furthest, within 15 minutes of Dunedin city every 20 minutes, instead of being within 20 to 25 minutes of the Octagon as at present. Considerable time could be saved due to there being no change-over of buses at Kaikorai or Wakari. I would ask the tramways manager. Transport Committee, or whoever decides on these things, to consider this suggestion, and to improve on the present bus system, which, to the people of Wakari, is only a farce and a muddle.—l am, etc.. Filius.