Another delay for bus hub

Completion of Dunedin's central-city bus hub has now been delayed by almost a year since the project was first proposed.

The design now includes a compromise between two shelter options, and a proposal for colourfully patterned footpaths has been scrapped.

The hub is a key part of a $3million transport project.

A hearing finished in October for the designation of the hub on Great King St between Moray Pl and St Andrew St and construction was planned to be completed next month.

Otago Regional Council support services manager Gerard Collings said it was now delayed until mid-August.

This longer timeframe was because contractors had indicated the work would take longer than expected, he said.

The proposal includes 10 bus bays on Great King St, electronic timetables, public toilets, bike stands and new plantings.

Initially the hub was expected to be operational by last September.

In July the Dunedin City Council decided the application needed to be publicly notified and would therefore require a hearing, delaying the project.

At the hearing the regional council presented two concept designs.

One showed 11 separate bus shelters and the other depicted extended canopies built on either side of the road at the Moray Pl end.

The latter was more popular with submitters, but would come at a greater cost.

The final design was somewhere between the two, with an expanded quality of shelter which was more continuous than the individual shelter option, Mr Collings said.

Footpaths would be tiled and paved as opposed to the proposed coloured asphalt as it was discovered the paint would not stand up well to wearing, he said.

The design was now in the form of construction drawings which were "not really in a position to be presented to the community", he said.

"We're pretty much continuing with what we had put through in the designation."

The project is still in the tendering phase, which will close next Wednesday.

Mr Collings did not want to comment on the cost of the project during that process.

Bus Users Support Group Otepoti Dunedin co-president Alex King said he was not surprised at the delay as the May deadline seemed tight.

Delays were "disappointing" as the sooner the hub could operate, the sooner people could get used to travelling anywhere in the city on buses through transfers, he said.

He would reserve judgement on the new shelter proposal until he had seen the design, he said.

However, he was concerned at the idea the bus centre would be moved from the Octagon where there was ample shelter to something with much less, he said.