By CASEY NEILL
BUSES meander through Cranbourne estates on circuitous routes, frustrating commuters to the point they won’t take the ride, a transport forum heard last week.
Lower fares for Zone 2 travellers and “forgotten” bus services were the hot topics at the Eastern Transport Coalition’s (ETC) Commuters Count Transport Summit at Springvale Reserve on 9 April.
City of Casey rated a mention during the discussions, although it’s not one of the seven councils that make up the ETC.
Council transport manager Paul Hamilton said the municipality was already a member of a number of regional transport groups, including the South East Metropolitan Group of Councils, the Interface Group of Councils and the Metropolitan Transport Forum.
He said their memberships reflected areas of interest relevant to the issues Casey was facing.
Buses are one of those issues, according to the speakers.
Urban planner Professor Roz Hansen said buses were the forgotten transport mode and needed more attention.
She suggested offering bus services in three levels – local, rail link and longer journeys – to improve usability and patronage.
The aim would be to run local services every 10 minutes, to deliver people from their homes to essential services like shopping centres and childcare.
“And we need to give buses priority on arterial roads,” she said.
Prof Hansen said the Public Transport Victoria website did not even show a bus network map.
“I think that reflects how we treat buses in our system,” she said.
RACV roads and traffic manager Dave Jones suggested regional councils could work with taxi companies to run a set route at a set price each day – a “quasi bus service”.
He was also receptive to the idea of a different funding model for bus services, to make companies think about attracting customers and encourage them to offer more services to better suit travellers.
ETC chairman and Knox councillor Peter Lockwood said one reason people didn’t take buses was they didn’t “want to go on tour, just from one suburb to the next”.
But he said Myki had stopped buses being delayed by people buying tickets.
“It makes the buses more efficient,” he said.
Regardless of the November State Election result, from 1 January the State Government will cap maximum daily fares at the Zone 1 rate across Melbourne’s public transport network.
Cr Lockwood said the move would increase patronage but cut revenue by $100 million.
“I’d rather see better services than cheaper services,” he said.
He said politicians would do what was popular, and urged people to keep pushing the public transport message – particularly ahead of the election.
Prof Hansen said she would “much rather see that money going into public transport”.
She also scoffed at last week’s announcement that V/Line passengers would receive free wi-fi, and said she was worried about government priorities.
“This isn’t going to solve some pretty fundamental problems,” Prof Hansen said.
