Youth lobby pushes for cheaper public transport

Wednesday, 27 March 2019

Family travel at weekends would be free under policies proposed by Generation Zero

Free weekend family travel, daily fare caps and bigger student discounts are proposed by the youth lobby Generation Zero to boost public transport use in Auckland.

The group said government fare policies and a lack of incentive fares were holding public transport use back, especially among poorer communities.

In a 24-page report, it said the first step should be the scrapping of a Government policy requiring fares to cover half the cost of public transport.

'This arbitrary rate forces public transport fares to increase with increased patronage,' the group's Auckland director Leroy Beckett said.

**READ MORE:

Generation Zero wants Auckland public transport to be free at weekends to attract new users.

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* Auckland public transport fares could be frozen

* Auckland's free buses and trains has released a genie out of the bottle**

Generation Zero said without that constraint, innovations such as free public transport for families at weekends could be introduced.

Generation Zero said one move should be to cap daily fares.

The report also argued for daily caps, which could be expanded to include weekly and monthly caps.

Generation Zero also proposed boosting the tertiary fare discount from the current 20 per cent level to 50 per cent, free travel for under-12s, and creating optional extra for holders of the AT HOP travel card, such as being able to buy an unlimited weekend travel pass.

Other ideas included extending the period allowed to transfer between services without extra cost from 30 minutes to an hour.

'This would encourage more 'multipurpose trips' where the user may stop to run errands, shop, or have meetings before continuing their journey at no extra cost,' the report said.

Beckett said he hoped candidates for this year's local body elections would support the plans, and the report had been sent to the Minister of Transport Phil Twyford.

Councillor Chris Darby, who has previously argued for new incentive fares, has backed the report and said the measures needn't be expensive.

Darby said his own proposal of free weekend travel for under-15s had been costed by Auckland Transport as losing up to $623,000 a year.

'If you focus on young people, you get inter-generational travel habits, that if locked in, pay themselves back in the future,' he said.

Darby said he would be promoting the report within the Auckland Council group and as part of work to be done with NZTA on a plan to shift more people out of cars and into public transport.

Generation Zero said its work had been prompted by the failure last summer of Auckland Transport to get backing to freeze fares at current levels.

Auckland Transport estimated the impact of having to roll out increases of up to 7 per cent would reduce the growth in public transport trips by 830,000.

Key government policies which have been in place for nearly a decade, such as the Farebox Recovery Ratio, were under review, but Twyford had given no indication when any change might occur.