FICKLE PATRONS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 39, 9 May 1927, Page 7

FICKLE PATRONS

BUSES DESERTED HIGH OPERATING COSTS TRAMS NOW POPULAR Th* Auckland City Council posesses 206 trams and 80 buses. It could find useful service at once for another 50 trams, but the running expenses of the buses are so much heavier that the tramway authorities find them a burden. According to Mr. A. E. Ford, tramways manager, it is the hign cost of running the buses that is responsible for recent increases in fares.

•Bus rides must always cost more than tram rides,” said Mr. Ford, dealing with the recent increases. He pointed out that the operating costs of buses were 60 or 70 per cent, higher than with trams. Fares must be correspondingly higher, and that position existed not only here, but also in the United States, the home of buses, despite the fact that there the buses had the benefit of cheap tyres and petrol, and other concessions. TAKING TO TRAMS

The recent rise in the fares charged on Auckland municipal buses has had the effect of driving many bus travellers on to trams, particularly on the Farnell route, where the trams at rush hours are now so crowded that Remuera passengers, who formerly travelled in moderate comfort, are now subjected to a good deal of inconvenience.

What is bad for the revenue of the bus services will be good for the tramway revenue, as the percentage of passengers to car mileage will rise materially if recent developments are maintained.

Mr. Ford said this morning that press articles criticising the tramway department’s policy were quoting only the cash fares, not the concession rates, which were extremely liberal. The people who wanted to travel by bus would have to reconcile themselves to paying more, otherwise the buses could not be run as an economic proposition. He pointed out that while private enterprise controlled the buses the competition with the trams had been unfair, because the private bus fleets had simply traded on the tramway passengers at their own convenience, and without the responsibility of meeting the demands of rush-hour traffic. Moreover, the bus proprietors had been carrying on along unsound lines, not making proper provision for depreciation, maintenance or replacements. COSTLY BUS FLEET

Since taking over the buses the City Council had found itself obliged to spend a lot of money on them. •You can’t satisfy everybody,” added Mr. Ford, pointing out that Point Chevalier people, now dissatisfied, faced a charge of Is when the first bus service ran from Point Chevalier to the tram terminus. Even at that fare the bus proprietor had been unable to carry on. The City Council, he said, was doing its best to cater for the people as a -whole, and was looking to the future, as well as to the present. It was for this reason that the lack of constructive criticism was to be deplored. Mr. F. W. H. Brinsden, a City Councillor, told a SUN man that the City Council had the vast investments of its ratepayers to consider when it was operating municipally-owned services. He agreed that Point Chevalier residents had a minor grievance because the buses stopped at the Civic Square and did not go to the waterfront, the natural terminus, but he said that would, if possible, be adjusted. As for the raising of the fares, that had been an economic necessity. POINT CHEVALIER INDIGNANT

Mr. J. B. Paterson, another City Councillor, said the bus boom was not what it had been. All over the world municipalities were realising that trams were best for handling traffic in closely settled centres.

Touching on the complaints of Parnell residents and their objection to the shortness of the first section, he said the length of the tram sections had been fixed by Order-in-Council, and could not be altered until 1933. Naturally, where it was following the same route, the bus section had to conform to the tramway section. Point Chevalier residents are so indignant about the new scale of fares that they intend holding a meeting of protest and a community bus service to meet the Grey Lynn trams has been suggested.