Councils are excited about the move towards joint governance of Dunedin transport.
As part of the Otago Regional Council long-term plan, its hearings committee recommended accepting the Dunedin City Council’s offer of a joint group governing the city’s buses.
The city council requested a committee comprising two or three members from each council to "jointly provide governance over the provision of public passenger transport services in Dunedin".
Regional council hearings panel chairman Doug Brown said the decision was partly influenced by the many submissions it received regarding public transport.
The saga over bus services for children living on Otago Peninsula "raised the awareness" of the issues, he said.
Council co-operation on transport was happening regularly already, he said.
"We just wanted to formalise it."
City councillor Kate Wilson said it was "fabulous" the regional council took steps to accept the offer.
The idea arose partly because the city council was already involved with "so much planning and infrastructure" around Dunedin.
The city council also had "different drivers and levers" and would have perhaps handled the peninsula bus situation better, she said.
The regional council received four submissions requesting the councils work together on Dunedin public transport and four requesting the city council take over services completely.
Generation Zero Dunedin said in its submission the city council was in the "most competent position" to make decisions around public transport in Dunedin, and advocated for the regional council lobbying central government to reform the Land Transport Management Act to allow this.
Bus Users Support Group Otepoti Dunedin co-president Alex King said the move was a "very good thing".
The city council was more experienced with consulting the Dunedin public and it would be good to integrate its transport planning into bus decisions, he said.
He did not think the city council should take over bus services completely, as this would mean losing the "institutional knowledge" from within the regional council.
The hearings committee recommendation will need to be ratified by the full regional council.
