Bus users ask to be listened to seriously

Both the young and the old called on Dunedin City Council to support changes to the way buses run in the city, at yesterday’s 2020-21 annual plan hearings. Both senior citizens and students made clear they wanted to be taken seriously.

Grey Power Otago president Jo Millar said she had already had ‘‘huge discussions’’ with the Otago Regional Council but felt seniors’ accessibility issues, particularly in South Dunedin, had not been taken seriously.

Otago University Students’ Association political representative Francesca Dykes called for ‘‘free and subsidised bus services’’ for students in North Dunedin to allow for better access across the city.

‘‘The situation we have with the bus services at the moment is really, really bad,’’ Mrs Millar said.

She said the Otago Regional Council’s decision-making had not been done with ‘‘the people in mind’’.

‘‘I believe it was done to ensure that the bus companies could operate the bus services in some form or another.’’

After Cr David Benson-Pope asked Ms Dykes whether the investigation under way by the city council, the regional council, and others, into an inner-city bus loop was of value to students, Ms Dykes said, ‘‘For students I don’t think the hurdle is getting to the inner-city supermarkets, it’s getting to things a little further afield’’.

‘‘There is an increasingly noticeable housing crisis in North Dunedin and providing greater access to buses and ensuring that service is reliable would enable and in fact encourage students to live further away from campus helping to mitigate this crisis,’’ she said.

She told Cr Jim O’Malley the association would be interested in working with the council’s transport team to have input into any coming changes or proposals to increase access to buses.

In its consultation document the city council says it will work with the regional council to lower bus fares and will ‘‘pick up any cost’’ for that next year.

Bus Users Support Group Otepoti Dunedin also called for the council to stop reinstalling poorly designed bus stops across the city.

Group co-president Peter Dowden said many of Dunedin's bus stops were unsafe or inaccessible due to obstructions such as poles, trees, cars or other obstructions preventing the driver from safely positioning a bus close to the kerb.

Mr Dowden said bus drivers saw roads closed for repairs, then reopened with renovated bus stops which had the same poorly designed faults.