When is a busway not a busway?

Re the article on April 9 'Northern Bus way given mixed reception'.
As a regular user of both the new Northern Express busway and the suburban bus routes I couldn't help but notice the gross inaccuracy of this article.
Andrew Blom the Northern Bus ways team leader suggests that taking a suburban express bus is faster than the new busway.This is hardly an option for people who do not go in 'rush hour' times as the express service only operates from 6:45 to 9:13 (Mairangi Bay stop) in the mornings.
Further to this I have never been at the bus stop when a bus has arrived even remotely on schedule, it's like a lucky dip to which one you get and when one does arrive you're running late.
So to travel between the times of 9.13 and 4.15 I shall have to take a normal bus. . . where do I begin on this, firstly a trip that takes 20mins from my house driving should not take an hour plus on the bus. Who has this kind of time in a day?
Secondly, the new bus routes seem to wind in and out of the new bus way system. . . why is this necessary if there is an express bus that goes from the same place straight along the bus way and no one ever gets on or off. . . common sense people!
Lastly every second one I go on seems to break down or have an indicator not working and all the bus patrons have to wait on the side of the road for another bus to come (this could just be my bad luck though) and generally makes me even later than I already am.
So here we are at my last option - the park and ride system or maybe it should be renamed drive around looking for a park, walk and then finally ride.
Andrew Blow does allude to the fact that "there have been some problems with people not getting parking spaces at park and ride stations".
In my personal experience, if I arrive at the Constellation Station at around 10 in the morning, there is not only no parking in the station but in all the surrounding areas too. Apparently the Albany station is even worse.
So I usually park about 1 km away. Now just to be clear I am not so lazy that I won't walk 1km. The problem is a) I am running late. . . again ... and b) I often come back late at night and the back of Constellation is a poorly lit industrial area and apparently the shore is quite a dangerous place (re Sharp eyes on street, April 9 2008).
We can all imagine my dilemma here. So I thought maybe I could catch a bus from Mairangi Bay to Constellation Station.
Imagine my horror when finding out there are only two buses that do this route. . . and only in rush hour! (85X and 86X for your reference).
Also note Mr Blom's comment "it works even better when people use feeder services (yeah right) to get to the stations or if people can be dropped at them (lucky for some)".
Many of my colleagues have suggested that they should have made multi-storey parking at the main stations, although I don't know how they will afford this after spending $300 million on the bus way. (Please someone explain to me how just over 6km of road and a few bus stations cost $300million of our taxpayer dollar)?
So possibly another solution would be to have a bus (or two) that goes east and west and loops back to the station, for example from Constellation one goes to Mairangi Bay and the other Greenhithe and from Albany one to Browns Bay and Long Bay and one to Albany Mega Centre and Olde Albany. Surely this would relieve a lot of the congestion.
Two quotes courtesy of Mr Blom: "If too many people use the Northern Express, it can't work because there are only so many services each day" and two paragraphs later " We want people to use these services." H Lewis