25 September 2013

Media Release:

Decline in public transport shows it is neither efficient nor affordable

The decline in public transport numbers for the second year in a row is a sign that public transport is neither efficient nor affordable for Aucklanders.

Overall public transport trips dropped from 2011 to 2012 and now by more than 3% for the year to August 2013.

When people get out of buses and trains and go back to cars we have the worst of all worlds with greater congestion on our roads, more greenhouse gas emissions, higher productivity losses and demands for more roads.

Auckland Transport is battling to improve efficiency and reliability of services but the public transport system, with nine separate private contracts for bus services, is fragmented, incoherent and very difficult to manage.

We don’t need more of this unreliable, high-priced service run by profit-hungry private bus contractors.

Minto for Mayor’s answer is to bring the system together in a single coherent whole and provide free buses and trains at less than half the cost of the big new roading projects which we won’t need in the foreseeable future.

This will dramatically reverse the current decline in public transport use and give Auckland less congestion, big savings for businesses (an increase in productivity of $1.25 billion each year) and families (the savings on petrol and transport fares) and the start of a truly liveable city.

The losers from our policy will be the big oil companies and car manufacturers but we don’t need to lose any sleep over that…

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