Dave Armstrong: Buses a much lower priority than cars in our big cities

Monday, 3 April 2023

Wellington’s electric airport bus was unveiled last year.

Dave Armstrong is a playwright and satirist based in Wellington. He is a regular contributor to Stuff.

OPINION: A few years back, I found myself travelling to Auckland almost weekly. Once we landed, I would pile into a taxi with colleagues and we would endure the long journey into the city. If we arrived around 8.30am the commute could take more than an hour.

When I was visiting Auckland under my own steam I worked out that the airport bus was far cheaper and sometimes quicker. It ran every 15 minutes, was often full of business types, and stopped at various points of the CBD so could drop me almost at the door.

When Covid hit, the airport bus service was badly affected. But at least they had an airport bus service, unlike Wellington. Now Wellington has a clean airport bus that is pleasing many. On a recent trip to Auckland I was able to compare airport bus services.

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The Auckland Airport bus now only runs every 30 minutes. When I landed at Auckland the bus arrived in a matter of seconds. Great. But gone was the spacious model of old, with room for luggage, this was the sort of bus that Wellingtonians used in the 1990s. It was full of passengers, but none were getting out.

Then I spotted the problem. The driver couldn’t let them out until they paid. Many were overseas travellers and the Eftpos machine the cursing bus driver was holding was on the blink. When the machine finally accepted the passengers’ cards, the driver had to stop everything and retrieve each passenger’s luggage from the compartment under the bus.

I won’t detail the large annual profit that the privatised Auckland airport makes but, needless to say, it doesn’t run the bus service.

After about 25 minutes we were allowed on. Being a Saturday, the trip into town didn’t take too long. When we finally got there – only one stop by SkyCity – we also queued to be let off. The driver continued to berate his dodgy Eftpos terminal, but we were informed that if we had cash we could pay more quickly. I didn’t happen to have exactly $17 on my person (or any cash) and he didn’t have any change if I did.

My next mission was to get to the North Shore. The first thing the Auckland Transport app told me was that Auckland was currently experiencing a driver shortage. I silently cursed the Wellington politicians who assured me that our dire local buses weren’t a result of National’s Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM), but because of the poor quality of local operators. They pointed to Auckland as a shining example of PTOM efficiency.

The second thing I learned was that you can’t pay cash on an Auckland bus. Nor could I use my Snapper card, so I shelled out ten bucks for a card and then another ten for fares. Perhaps I would need $20? Sorry, they didn’t have the machine that tops up the cards, just prepay. This at the biggest bus depot in the country.

Finally, with bus card in hand, the app directed me to the ‘Wellesley St’ stop. Yet there are many bus stops on Wellesley St. I was soon pointed to the correct stop – thank you, driver – and waited. The right bus came within minutes and I had a minor coronary when I learned that most main-route Saturday buses in Auckland run every 15 minutes as opposed to Wellington’s 30.

The comfortable bus got me over the bridge in no time. Auckland seems to have more priority bus lanes than Wellington. Getting back at the end of the day was easy with a maximum 15-minute wait. All for about a tenth of the cost of an Uber or taxi. Even better, the bus back to the airport was spacious with baggage racks, we could pay at the beginning, not the end of the journey, and the driver’s eftpos machine worked perfectly. I suspect the terrible journey from the airport was an exception rather than the rule.

So, the verdict? It’s obvious both cities still put buses at much lower priority than cars. Why aren’t city bus services allowed to make the airport part of their normal run? Should airports have a statutory obligation to run a decent public transport service instead of simply building more car parks?

Auckland buses are certainly having their problems. According to an RNZ investigation, more than 1000 buses per day didn’t turn up as scheduled in February. That compares with just under 450 in Wellington, which makes it proportionally worse than Auckland. On the worst February weekday one in every nine scheduled Auckland buses didn't arrive. In Wellington's worst day, one in six was cancelled.

Despite the hassles, the view of Auckland from the harbour bridge was stunning, as was the view of Wellington when I flew back in. The dire state of public transport in both cities doesn’t mean they aren’t great places to live or that they are dying. But how wonderful both cities could be if we got our act together.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that you cannot pay for buses in Wellington with cash. (Amended April 4, 2023).