Yet another train/track fault last night was the final straw. Why is Auckland transport making new tracks when it can't even maintain what it has already? Too many times it's "OK get off here, go and find a bus" or trains just vanish from the timetable.
For public transport to succeed it needs to be cheap, reliable and easy. Auckland transport is reasonably priced is 0.5 out of 3.
Make it free and get people to use it, then either add a small charge or remove some of the council bloat and put that towards public transport. Once more people use it then it should get more frequent. Again as no-one had forethought, some tracks a single lines so you can only have one train tieing up the line beyond Penrose to Onehunga for example. That needs to change to twin lines everywhere and trains to the airport and north shore to at least Albany. Don’t try and milk it to make money just make it good. Every household contributes $1000 a year or so in rates for it if I recall correctly.
It needs to be easy. Needs to be a no brainer to use. I take the train because each time I've taken the bus it's been like being a passenger in a rally car and it's impossible to read etc. Whoever thought that any park and ride is big enough obviously doesn't use them. All the ones I know about are full early and New Lynn doesn't even have one. And just little things like the times they run. I would get to town at 8:32. Great, not many people take 28 minutes to get to their offices. I gained almost an hour in my day today by driving.
I'm generally for small government but public transport is something that needs to be right for a city to function. You should be able to jump on something go to an event or out for dinner and know you can get home safely even if you've had a few drinks.
If you can't do it properly just make the main roads bigger and give up. Let Uber rule transport and give me a third of my rates back.
I do miss an hour reading each day though.
Yes, TL:DR.
