John MacDonald: $8 bus fares? No thanks

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

There is no way I would pay $8 to ride a bus, but we’re being warned today that that’s what we could end up paying in just three years.

That’s because the Government has told councils right around the country that they need to find more money for public transport, so that they don’t have to rely so much on rates and government money to keep the buses and trains going.

That’s the polite way of putting it. What NZTA is really saying is that the Government isn’t prepared to keep propping up public transport. Which, in the Greater Christchurch area, means massive fare increases are on the cards.

That’s according to Environment Canterbury (ECAN) regional councillor Deon Swiggs. ECAN, of course, has the job of running buses here and he’s saying that if they followed NZTA’s request to the letter, we’d see the $2 bus fares go up to $8 by 2027.

Where he gets that number from is that NZTA is saying to ECAN that it wants 38% of the cost of running the buses coming from private revenue.

I use the buses quite regularly. I was on a bus on Saturday, and I think the bus service in the Greater Christchurch area is, all things considered, actually very good.

But if the fares got up to $8, who would bother? If you work five days a week and get the bus, that’s potentially $90 a week in bus fares. Forget about it.

Which is why I’m hoping ECAN is going to push back big time on this.

We’ve seen the city council push back on directives from Wellington, and the regional council needs to do the same on this one.

Still, maybe it's not surprising when we’ve got a government that thinks it makes sense to increase the speed limit on the Southern Motorway to get us from Rolleston to Christchurch 49 seconds quicker.

A government that wants to press on with oil and gas exploration, and a government that doesn’t like pinging people with fuel taxes, and wants to make it cheaper for people to use their cars.

It might not be surprising, but it’s crazy to think that people would want to —let alone be able to— pay $8 bus fares.

But Transport Minister Simeon Brown doesn’t think it would be nuts.

He says: “Taxpayers and ratepayers have been increasingly subsidising public transport in recent years. We expect councils to find efficiencies to keep these costs down and to look at maximising alternative revenue streams such as advertising on the public transport network.”

The Transport Minister also thinks outfits like ECAN could lease out more space to retailers at bus stations and transport hubs. But as if ECAN is going to put time and effort into selling advertising or leasing out space. All it would do would increase fares. Through the roof.

And if that happened, I would be kissing the bus goodbye.

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