At today’s meeting, Dunedin city councillors will consider a draft submission on the Otago Regional Council’s plan for the next 10 years of public transport investment.
The city council’s submission on the draft regional public transport plan was considered at a meeting earlier this month but councillors asked for amendments to be made and the final decision was delayed until this week’s meeting.
The new draft submission asked the regional council to consider a central Dunedin bus loop to complement existing services, "including whether there is scope for this to be commercially operated to increase private share revenue".
Mayor Jules Radich broached the subject last meeting, asking staff about the status of a long-proposed loop bus around the central city.
Senior transport planner Helen Chapman said a business case for a free-to-ride, city council-funded loop bus found the idea faced several challenges.
"Unless the ORC significantly changes all the existing routes, it would be competing with the current public transport services, which is a problem under the Land Transport Management Act," she said.
"It was quite hard to make it stack up on the economic benefits and we had a regulatory problem that DCC couldn’t contract it independently of ORC and it would compete with existing ORC routes."
Mr Radich asked if a loop bus could increase private share contribution — a proportion of the total cost to provide public transport, excluding rates and government funding, which central government has asked local councils and transport authorities to increase.
"Might we write something in our submission that we ask that they relook at the loop bus with a view to increasing private share contributions to the running of that service?
"People might pay more, there might be a sponsor, there could be a range of sponsors."
Ms Chapman said it could be included but the answer would likely be: "it does not fit within the regulatory framework".
"Yes, well, it’d be good to have that back formally," Mr Radich said.
Cr Carmen Houlahan agreed with the mayor.
"Could we make a really strong point ... emphasising the fact that it is something we’ve asked for for a really, really long time and it feels like it’s falling on deaf ears.
"It shouldn’t be this difficult."
In 2009, a 17-month trial of a campus circuit bus service turned "city loop" was axed after attracting poor passenger numbers, an average of below one person per trip.
A 2020 study, jointly funded by the city and regional councils, found a city centre loop bus could cost more than $1 million a year to run, would probably not attract government support and the concept had a track record of failure elsewhere in New Zealand.
The amended draft submission had a greater focus on sustainability and said effective public transport service was "critical" to lowering transport emissions.
It asked for commuters services between Oamaru and Balclutha, a Dunedin Airport service and more bus services options for the Edgar Centre to be considered in the plan, which would contribute to the the city council’s Zero Carbon goals.
Consultation for the plan closes on Friday.
