LETTER: Unkindest cut for late night commuters

My sympathies to the frustrated users of the partially discontinued 952 service.
My association with public transport in Auckland goes back over 50 years. I have commuted for 40 of those years to university and employment, from both Auckland and North Shore cities, but my family connection to buses goes back to the Green Line Bus Company of Jackson and Guinivere which operated in Auckland in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
My father Wal Guinivere was co-owner/driver/mechanic of the Green Line buses which provided one of the first cross-city services in Auckland.
Buses are in my blood, and right now that blood is boiling with frustration at the treatment meted out to commuters, particularly those on the North Shore who wish to use any other service other than the showcase park and ride.
Do the people making the decisions to axe services use public transport on a regular basis? I doubt it. Public transport should be just that. Public. Owned by the public through the city council. Auckland's bus services should have never been privatised. Service always comes second when profit rules. 21st century Auckland's commuter nightmare is now no place for private operators on the majority of routes. The only way to get vehicles off the roads is a fully subsidised, efficient and very regular bus service. Waiting half a hour for a bus at peak periods when a connection is missed due mainly to heavy traffic is no way to persuade drivers out of their vehicles.
So pity the users of the 963 and 964 services between the North Shore and Newmarket. This service, which I have used since its inception, is to be completely axed.
In spite of an increase in patronage from Ponsonby commuters who recently lost their own service to Symonds St, Khyber Pass and Newmarket; in spite of a petition of over 30 signatures from just one 964 trip (leaving Smales Farm at 7.05am), the entire 964 is to go. At least the 952 Glenfield commuters have been left a remnant. With the demise also of my homeward bus, the 963, a single bus trip now has endless combinations. Bus plus bus, train plus bus, train plus bus, plus bus. Just the thing to finish off a busy work day.
The latest round of cuts means fewer choices of feeder buses to the much-touted Northern Busway. The two extra 962 services offered as replacements for the defunct 963 and 964 are too late in the morning and too early in the evenings. My daily commute (and that of my fellow sufferers) has been amputated at both ends.
I look forward to the opening of the new Newmarket Station as my pass enables me to use the trains. This is the one bright spot in the otherwise gloomy 2010 commuter forecast.
Sylvana Guinivere Whyborn