Traffic congestion in Queenstown is doubling or tripling students’ travel time to high school. Wakatipu High School principal Oded Nathan said the long delays were affecting students’ wellbeing, and when they were late to school in the morning, their productivity. “For some students they are doubling or tripling their time of travel, so what might be a 20-minute ride between here and home might be well over an hour.” He said delays earlier this week caused some students to take an hour and a-half to get home. The delays were starting to have a “trickle-down effect” on several levels.. There was some unwillingness from students and staff to engage in after-school extracurricular activities as they would be stuck in peak-time traffic jams when they finished. “We’ve got a bus system that isn’t meeting demands, and then our students are feeling they can’t rely on the bus and are therefore getting in a car [often driven by their parents], and of course that is impacting the congestion issue we are all feeling.” He said he had even contemplated changing school hours. One idea would be starting at 10.30am and finishing at 5pm — but “what we might kind of alleviate in the mid-morning, we’re exacerbating in the afternoon”. “And I don’t think our students and community would buy a 7am start.” Wakatipu High School was particularly affected as it was on the Frankton Flats where much of Queenstown’s traffic congestion was centred. Mr Nathan said for more than 18 months he had raised inadequacies with the after-school Jack’s Point/Hanley’s Farm service, despite two bus services, half an hour apart, being diverted to pick up students. While encouraging active travel, Mr Nathan did not recommend students bike along the southern corridor until the new cycle trail was in place. Local Otago regional councillor Matt Hollyer said he fully understood the frustration the whole community was feeling, and not just schools. “It sucks, is the short answer. “The last thing we want is an unreliable public bus service — we want people to be able to get where they want to go as best they possibly can. “We really want a reliable, dependable public transport service, and that’s what we’ve got set up contractually.” However, Cr Hollyer was aware of the challenges traffic congestion was posing to public transport schedules. He said NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) originally incorporated bus lanes as part of its planning for the BP intersection upgrade “and NZTA pulled back on doing that because of the cost”. “Now, it seemed wrong at the time, and it demonstrated its shortsightedness immediately.” scoop@scene.co.nz
