Christchurch the country's car capital as residents shun buses

Wednesday, 3 January 2018

Rush hour traffic on Brougham St in Christchurch causing havoc for drivers.

Christchurch has emerged as the car capital of New Zealand as residents continue shunning public transport, figures show.

Nearly two thirds of people chose to avoid the city's buses in the past two years, instead relying on cars or vans for their journeys.

In 2015, the city council unveiled a $156 million programme to build 13 new cycle routes around the city in a bid to encourage more people onto their bikes.

A Ministry of Transport (MoT) travel analysis showed public transport use in Christchurch was the lowest in the country compared to the other major cities, with the average resident spending as many hours on their bike as on a bus.

Just 35 per cent of people used public transport – buses, trains or ferries – in Christchurch in the past year, compared to 60 per cent in Auckland, 77 per cent in Wellington and 40 per cent nationally.

Just 35 per cent of people used public transport in Christchurch in the past year.

Christchurch city councillor Mike Davidson says public transport use and cycling figures are 'disappointing'.

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Christchurch city councillor Mike Davidson said public transport use and cycling figures were 'disappointing' and needed improving.

Despite 700 more cars hitting the streets of Auckland every week in the year to September, Christchurch still has a greater proportion of trips taken that way – 63 per cent compared to the 53 per cent in Auckland and 44 per cent in Wellington.

Christchurch residents each spend an average of 221 hours behind the wheel every year, compared with just 10 hours on public transport – against the 187 hours driving and 25 hours on public transport in Auckland and 134 hours and 34 hours respectively in Wellington.

A further 10 hours per person are spent travelling by bike in Christchurch each year, and 34 hours are taken up by journeys on foot, the study found.

No-one from Christchurch City Council or Environment Canterbury (ECan), which provides public transport in the city, was available to comment on the low levels of bus use because staff are on leave for the holiday period.

But Davidson, deputy chairman of the city council's infrastructure, transport and environment committee, said good public transport and cycle infrastructures were needed to encourage the use of those transport modes 'because if we don't increase them then all it's going to do is add to the congestion'.

In 2015, the council unveiled a $156 million programme to build 13 new cycle routes around the city in a bid to encourage more people on to their bikes, and a city-wide bike-share scheme has just been introduced.

'Cycling is increasing but a lot of reasons why people choose not to cycle is because they think it's not safe,' Davidson said.

'It's something we need to address for the future of this city – we can't just rely on cars.'

The study examined the weekly travel habits of 5703 people across the country between October 2015 and August 2017 - found the vast majority prefer to get behind the wheel for their journeys. Of those, 392 of whom were in Christchurch.

New Zealanders spend around 1.5 billion hours travelling every year, covering almost 52 billion kilometres across all forms of transport.

Some 82 per cent of all the time spent travelling is as a driver or passenger in a car or van and just five per cent on public transport.

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