What better way to make your point about the bus service than by riding in a special bus to make your submission?
That is what members of the Greater Green Island Community Network plan to do this week, in their campaign to reinstate a multi-stop No70 ‘‘local'' bus linking Brighton and South Dunedin.
The network is backed by the Bus Go Dunedin bus users support group, and both groups will put their case to an Otago Regional Council meeting tomorrow morning.
The two groups will use an Otago Heritage Bus Society vehicle to bring people to the meeting, at the council's Stafford St head office.
A network petition with more than 400 signatures, supporting the proposed bus change, will be presented there.
The free bus would travel the route the groups wanted a local bus service to follow, connecting Brighton to South Dunedin via Abbotsford, Green Island, Concord, Corstorphine and Caversham, organisers said.
Petition supporters will be able to sit in the council chamber's public gallery, and listen as group representatives speak.
The bus will depart after the submission and return people as far as Green Island. The special bus will earlier depart Brighton at 8.55am, stopping at Abbotsford at 9.10am, Green Island at 9.18am, Concord at 9.22am, Caversham at 9.28am and Cargills Corner at 9.32am to arrive at the council office about 9.45am, organisers said.
Last July, the council introduced a more direct southern route bus service, with links via a Green Island ‘‘super stop'' to central Dunedin, as part of wider plans to modernise and speed up Dunedin's public bus service.
But many southern bus users said they had been disadvantaged by the loss of previous links between Green Island and South Dunedin.
Bus Go co-president Alex King said the express service had ‘‘worked well for many people'' and improved travel times and comfort for longer distance bus users.
But some people had been badly affected by the loss of a multi-stop service to South Dunedin, and reintroducing a bus to cater for them would make a ‘‘big difference''.
There was goodwill from the council, he said, and he was hopeful of an eventual positive outcome.
