Off the buses

Press, 30 January 1986, Page 20

Off the buses

The Christchurch Transport Board has found itself between a rock and a hard place. The severe drop in revenue since November, last year, has forced the board to consider cutting its services. This would be the start of a downward spiral in which reduced services would attract fewer passengers, mean less income, and lead to even more reductions in the services provided. Risky though this course might be, it is hard to see how the board can avoid at least some reductions in the face of a 28.7 per cent drop in revenue over the last three months.

The strike by bus drivers before Christmas played a large part in this loss of income; more worrying, however, is the 15 per cent drop in revenue since fares were increased by a third on January 6. The fare increase was itself an effort to recover some lost ground. The conclusion is inescapable — fewer people are choosing to ride the buses. Some of the present decline in patronage can be attributed to the increase in fares, and some, no doubt, to the period of the strike when patrons found alternative means of travel and have not returned to the buses. Nevertheless, declining patronage is nothing new and the board has been battling for many years to attract greater custom. Christchurch is well served by its public

transport system. A reduction in bus services will adversely affect a great many people, although it must be acknowledged that during the period of the strike Cathedral Square and much of the central city were more pleasant places to be without the pall of fumes from bus exhausts.

No matter how splendid a service might be, it cannot be continued if the passenger loadings are insufficient to meet a reasonable portion of the costs. Even as matters stand, bus users supply less than half of the cost of the service through their fares. The deficit is met by ratepayers and by taxpayers through advances from the Government.

Ratepayers who. grumble about the extent of the subsidy they are asked for to keep the bus service going have at least part of the solution in their own hands. If more people used the buses, passenger revenues would increase and less demand would have to be placed on ratepayer contributions.

Nevertheless, the time will come when ratepayers cry “enough.” If commuters and shoppers prefer to travel by other means, and the ratepayers grow restless about subsidising a service that has increasing difficulty attracting custom, the board will be left with little option but to begin that risky programme of reducing services.