The punters are not happy!

DominionPost letter writers on train fares

Proposed fare rise sucks

I read of the proposed increase to Wellington bus fares in September. Coming from a service and regional council that claim they want to get people out of cars, this would be laughable were it not so sad.
We live in Karori and take the bus to and from work twice a week, keeping the car for weekends.
We each pay $2.80 each way on the bus (on a 10-trip ticket), so between us pay $11.20 a day. Parking in the Clifton Tce car park costs $12 a day.
We don’t like catching the bus. The service is unreliable, we live some way from the stop and often can’t get a seat. It’s no thrill to stand in a shuddering tin for up to 35 minutes listening to distorted music from other people’s poorly insulated headphones, all the time thinking, “If I’d taken the car, I’d be at work by now”.
If fares go up, we’d have to be saints to keep doing it.
Probably many people are in our situation.
Those who continue to take the bus will be those who can’t afford to drive – in other words, those who can least afford the fare increase. That sucks.
AMY RUSSELL
Karori

Patronage increase is forgotten

Greater Wellington regional council points to the increase in costs for increase in fares but makes no mention of increase in revenue.
It cites fuel costs as the major reason for its proposed 10 per cent increase, which is, of course, the same reason for the increase in patronage.
But what is the increase in patronage? No mention. The latter offsets the former by a considerable margin, I suspect.
One thing for sure is that there’s been no increase in services for 25 years. Derailing by old age is a real prospect.
We can keep commuting – albeit in a hit-and-miss kind of way – because of the planners of 50 and more years ago. Exactly what have our recent planners designed?
Another advertising campaign probably.
GEOFF SHEPHERD
Alicetown

This isn’t the time for a rise

We are informed that Greater Wellington regional councillors have decided in secret to raise public transport fares by an average of 10 per cent, because of the additional costs being incurred by rising oil prices and labour (July 1), yet we’re not told (in secret or otherwise) about the additional revenue from increased patronage.
There are very few service providers, outside of a monopoly, who can raise prices for a fall-off in service.
Maybe the time to raise fares is when the bus service isn’t beyond capacity, the trains are not dilapidated and everyone gets a seat?
PETER ANNAND
Greytown

The logic of this defies me

So Greater Wellington regional council has voted to raise train fares by 10 per cent from September because of increased fuel costs.
Could someone at the council clarify how they managed this level of logic?
Trains, and a significant number of our bus services, are electrified.
If the figures quoted are to be believed, passenger use of these services has more than doubled, meaning that these services should be reeling in very healthy profits.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t these tax and ratepayer-funded basic infrastructural community services not designed to make a profit at the expense of individuals’ attempts to keep travel costs and fuel bills down?
Yes, fuel prices are up, but surely the increased efficiency of electrified train and bus services through increased patronage and profits should go some way to mitigate higher costs?
Or do the benefits of economies of scale not apply here?
SIDDARTHA NAIDU
Waikanae

Adam like the correspondents to the Dominion Post, whose letters were published in the paper on July 3, is some what upset and confused. He takes the train to Wellington, the trains are often crowded.

Government policy is to get people out of their cars. Taking the train does that.

Trains are supposedly good, cars are supposedly bad. So why make passengers so unhappy? In fact Adam is sure he read somewhere that train prices were going up so that the effective cost of rail and bus were the same for the same routes. A piece of logic which escapes him.

Another cost impost at a time of inflation, and costs, especially those imposed by government (central and local) keep spiralling upwards at a rate in excess of inflation.

There is an apparent disconnect between central government policy and regional government implementation in my humble opinion.

Passengers, the many thousands of them each day are, many of them, voters. This is an election year. Adam suspects that many hard pressed passengers will think about fare rises when they come to vote.