<p>End of the road for bus lane bandits

By JOHN COUSINS
EVER had a sneaky drive on the Hewletts Rd bus lanes? Ever been tempted to?
If so, it might pay to think again - queue jumpers are less than a fortnight away from getting regularly whacked with $150 fines.
A recent Bay of Plenty Times photographic sting highlighted how increasing numbers of private motorists and courier drivers were ignoring the rules to keep out of the dedicated bus and cycle lanes, especially in rush hour.
But the days of virtual thumbing of noses at authorities are numbered.
Tauranga City Council staff are primed to spring into action with a video camera as soon as Transit New Zealand agrees to delegate enforcement authority for the bus lanes to the council. That decision is expected this week at a Transit board meeting.
Harbour Link project manager Kevin Reid said the Police Commissioner was ready to authorise the transfer of enforcement powers as soon as the board made its decision. He anticipated the legalities would be finalised by the middle of this month.
Specially trained council officers who normally patrolled carparks will film stretches of the bus lanes and use the number plates of offending vehicles to issue $150 tickets.
Motorists have become increasingly bold about using the bus lane to leap-frog queues since the $13.3 million widening of Hewletts Rd finished five months ago.
Mr Reid said police had not undertaken any special enforcement of the bus lanes.
Western Bay police traffic boss Senior Sergeant Ian Campion agreed that the bus lane was only periodically patrolled. Although tickets had been issued, there were higher priorities for police resources in terms of high-risk crashes.
The Bay of Plenty Times recently snapped five vehicles in less than three minutes using the bus lane to get the jump on fellow motorists.
The pictures were taken between Waimarie St and Totara St, with none of the cars and courier vehicles appearing to have a legitimate reason to be in the bus lane. An eyewitness said just about every time the lights turned red (at Waimarie St) someone snuck up the inside to get to the head of the queue.
Motorists can only use bus lanes to access and exit businesses and side roads along Hewletts Rd.
The increasing trend to cheat along the bus lanes had been noticed by Bay Hopper bus drivers, although Bayline managing director Tony Lugg said it was not too bad.
Four-laning of Hewletts Rd meant traffic flows were "pretty reasonable" outside of peak hours and there was not the temptation for people to duck down the inside, he said.
However Mr Lugg said things could easily get out of hand if enforcement did not happen soon.
While the lane seemed empty, the number of passengers per bus translated into a lot of single-occupant cars. Mr Lugg said the effectiveness of the bus lanes had been proven by a contest between a bicycle, bus and car leaving Bayfair Shopping Centre at the same time.
The cyclist, radio breakfast show DJ Brian Kelly, failed to beat a bus passenger to Mid City Mall, and the car driver arrived 10 minutes later.
Mr Lugg said the bus lane had improved the ability of Bay Hopper to keep to timetables. The next big step forward in making buses even more attractive to the public would be a bus lane down Cameron Rd and installing electronic transponders in buses to hold traffic lights on green.
Bay Hopper patronage was ahead 16 per cent on the first two months of last year and the service was looking at notching up a million passengers for the current financial year. This was 700,000 passengers more than was carried during the first year of the service which started in 2001.