Fair fares for Wellington bus users

Tony Randle has analysed the proposed increased public transport fares in Wellington. He finds:

My analysis is that they are unfair because the PT cost increases are due to increased rail costs (to pay for the new trains) so why must bus users be charged more.  My more detailed analysis is attached (I send you the Word version so you can more easily extract elements should you so choose).

 Anyway, I think the it fairer to have rail users pay their share of the costs of improved rail services by increasing the heavily discounted rail fares that are not available to bus commuters.  There is a similar issue with respect to some cities (Wellington and Lower Hutt) paying excessive rates (in the $Ms) to support other areas (Kapiti and Wairarapa) but I have not yet written up my analysis in this area.

Wellington Regional Council seems to have a weird anti-bus fetish. They even tried recently to close some bus lines down, so people would use the trains more.

You can submit on the proposed fare increases up until end of Friday. Tony’s analysis is below.

Fair Fares for Wellington – Bus Fares to Fund Increased Rail Costs