But four members of the Bus Users Support Group Otepoti Dunedin have now proved walking to work from some parts of Dunedin is also quicker than the bus.
Group member Peter Dowden said the group participated in an "Amazing Race" in which members took a bus from Waverley to the city centre while two other members walked, to see who would get there first.
The race, from the corner of Challis St and Larnach Rd to the Octagon via Portsmouth Dr, aimed to highlight and protest the "ultra-slow" bus service from Waverley to the city centre, he said.
"The walkers beat the bus by about 10 minutes."
He said the problem was the service had a loop at the end of it, which was interrupted by the service terminus, where the bus stopped for 40 minutes before continuing its journey back to the city centre.
"You should never interrupt the loop because it either annoys all the people who are heading home, or all the people heading into town. Half of them will end up having to sit inside the bus for ages or walk to the other side of their suburb to catch another bus."
Otago Regional Council support services manager Gerard Collings said the council and the bus operator were aware of the issue.
"The issue is that the terminus is at the top of Waverley, and in the off-peak services, there’s a delay between when the service finishes and when the next one starts.
"The way this service operated historically is, there was virtually no slack time in the service at all, which meant during peak times the service was always running late.
"With the new services, we’ve built in extra time to accommodate that. In the peak times it’s not an issue, because there’s only a small delay at the top. But in the off-peak it is, because we’re only running at half the frequency. So there’s not that extra bus coming in to fill the hole."
Mr Collings said the ORC and the service operator had been working on a fix that would not affect the timetable.
"We’re anticipating we’ll get the costings for the fix sometime next week, and then we’ll be able to make a judgement call on whether it justifies some additional expense, which we don’t think will be that much."
