$115m Christchurch bus plan endorsed, but concerns raised over time and cost

Thursday, 10 December 2020

Environment Canterbury unveiled a new look for Christchurch's buses in September 2020.

A substantial proposed upgrade to Christchurch's bus network has gained three key endorsements, but some city leaders are concerned about how long it will take to implement it, whether it goes far enough, and the price-tag.

One hundred extra buses and 22 kilometres of new bus lanes are included in the $115 million plan to revitalise Greater Christchurch's unreliable and uncompetitive public transport. The business case has been developed by the region's councils and the NZ Transport Agency.

On Thursday, both Environment Canterbury (ECan) and the Christchurch City Council endorsed the 10-year plan and allocated funding to it. The Selwyn District Council endorsed it on Wednesday.

While ECan voted unanimously in favour of the plan, six Christchurch city councillors voted against it: Sam MacDonald, James Gough, Catherine Chu, Phil Mauger, Yani Johanson, and Aaron Keown.

These five main routes will all have bus lanes on them under the proposed $115m 10-year plan.

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Under the plan, the five main bus routes would have frequencies of just 7.5 minutes.

MacDonald said he did not disagree with public transport, but voted against the plan because he thought there were other priorities.

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“To look at the patronage of the buses now and look where it will go over 10 years, I’m not so sure this is the best investment given the competing interests we have for our money,” he said.

The council has dedicated $60m towards the bus improvements, which aims to increase patronage from 14 million trips this year to 20 million by 2028.

MacDonald's cost argument was shot down by Cr Sara Templeton, who said the cost of inaction would be greater.

“Investing in our future now will save future generations from the economic, social and environmental impacts of climate change from being as bad as they are currently predicted,” she said.

Johanson voted against the plan because it did not address the lack of routes in eastern Christchurch and was not bold or ambitious enough, while Keown questioned whether the plan would actually benefit the city's emissions.

Keown's point was described as “fake news” by Cr Mike Davidson, who chairs the council committee for transport. He said the plan was a “significant step” in addressing Christchurch’s public transport, which was underutilised because it was underinvested.

“Once this is approved, it is time to sit down with central government and have a serious conversation about co-investing to ensure these outcomes are delivered sooner rather than later,” he said.

Those pleas of greater urgency were heard throughout the ECan chambers during its meeting on Thursday, where it too endorsed the plan.

Cr Vicky Southworth said she was “champing at the bit” to get the plan implemented faster while Cr Nicole Marshall was concerned about the “slow pace”.

“We need to do this. We shouldn’t be scared of what a potential rates rise could look like,” Marshall said.

Cr Elizabeth McKenzie said the plan was not ambitious enough, adding: “We need to reduce our carbon emissions, so we need to do this with some urgency.”

One transport planner labelled the plan “unambitious” and said a lot of money was being spent to keep the status quo.

Axel Downard-Wilke, a transport planner for ViaStrada, said the plan was trying to get people on to public transport, but more could be gained by trying to push people out of cars.

He said most of the plan's cost was actually just widening roads to create a corridor for buses, without affecting the capacity of cars.

He was not convinced the plan would reduce carbon emissions and described it as “really, really unambitious”.