Regional Land Transport Committee Chairman Alan Dick announced last Friday that new bus services between Hastings/Havelock North and Napier during commuter hours would soon begin. Details will be announced in August.
As Angela Hair of Baywatch said: “Yea for democracy!” Baywatch was a strong advocate of this move during recent HBRC annual plan consultations, Mayor Yule’s sustainability forum, and elsewhere.
When consultations began, the HBRC planned to take a more incremental approach to improving bus service, being careful not to promise added routes in the coming fiscal year.
But a combination of environmental voices, including Baywatch and HB Sustaining Trust, business accounts of employers in Hastings and Napier finding it more difficult to attract new employees willing to commute from one town to the other, and politicians hearing increasingly loud constituent complaints about fuel costs, led HBRC and the Transport Committee to accelerate their plans.
Congratulations to the submitters who spoke up, and the Councillors who listened and successfully lobbied for the additional funding support from Land Transport NZ.
A good example of the process working!
Tom
How about putting a large bus on rail boggies and running a service from Napier direct to Hastings and return every hour [or even every half-hour] It would sure beat the over one hour road trip on a bus currently in operation. Some of us are old enough to remember 'railcars'. and while the Italian made ones gave no end of mechamical trouble it can't be that hard to make something right here in Aotearoa. We still have one of more than 8 major rail workshops left in Wellington-don't we?