‘Standing room only’ bus route to become more frequent
Tuesday, 18 February 2025
Overcrowding of buses on one of Christchurch’s busiest routes is expected to ease soon, with the regional council confirming that new buses will join route 7 from April 28 on a trial basis.
It comes six months after route 7 Halswell/Queenspark became the only public transport frequency improvement project that Waka Kotahi - NZ Transport Agency agreed to fund in Greater Christchurch. It cost $8.3 million in total, including new electric buses.
Route 7 will be the third ‘turn up and go’ service in Christchurch, where buses are expected once every 10 minutes and the average waiting time is cut to five minutes.
Andrei Moore, city councillor for Halswell, said the bus was in such high demand that some people missed out because they physically could not fit on.
“I suspect a lot of people stopped using the service because of how full it got,” he said.
Moore was one of those people. He used to take the bus to some council meetings, but the “smug” feeling he got watching the bus zip past cars stuck in traffic did not trump the guilt of seeing others being left on the side of the road.
Environment Canterbury (ECan) councillor Deon Swiggs said he was “constantly” hearing about overcrowding on route 7. He had recently spoken to a hospital worker who had missed a bus in to work because it was too full.
“Frequent, reliable, comfortable and safe public transport is critical to getting people to use it,” he said.
He and other regional councillors heard at a public transport briefing on Wednesday that the extra buses would be trialled until June 2027.
Council staff said NZTA was yet to finalise a new national criteria through which ECan could measure the trial’s success. If deemed so, ECan could apply for funding to keep it going.
Swiggs said the Government’s transport funding priorities had made it difficult for the regional council to keep its promises around improving public transport.
When the National Land Transport Programme (NLTP) was released in September, and only approved route 7 for frequency improvements, then-ECan chairman Peter Scott said “at this pace, we are more than a decade away from getting our public transport services near to where they need to be”.
However, Swiggs said despite the criticism of NZTA, the route 7 trial was “fantastic” news and a testament to how well the council and NZTA staff could work well together.
Moore said more buses would help reduce congestion on the roads, but it was “just a start” to the service improvements needed in Halswell.
He said one necessity was creating four lanes of traffic on Lincoln Rd, between Curletts Rd and Wrights Rd, as part of a larger project to create a continuous bus link between Halswell and the central city.
As it stands, Christchurch City Council wants to delay the $10.2m project for another three years in the hope of securing government funding.
But Moore was against delays because it meant the Brougham St upgrade would begin first. When considering the “few more thousand people” expected to move to the south west of the city in that time, traffic disruption would be maximised, he said.
The public will be asked for feedback on this delay during the council’s annual plan process, which opens for consultation on February 26.