HB buses ready to go extra mile

Bus routes will be extended in an effort to bring more passengers onto public transport in Hawke's Bay. And an express service between Napier and Hastings is possible - if people want it.
Bus company Nimon and Sons Ltd plans to extend the Tamatea route to take in Church Road. This will allow passengers to travel between central Napier and the wineries and new subdivisions on Church Road.
The Saturday service from Flaxmere to Hastings will also be extended, to include Havelock North.
Nimon general manager Pete Patterson said he would meet staff from the Hawke's Bay Regional Council, who subsidise public transport and set the bus timetable, and sort out the new routes before printing a new timetable in a couple of weeks.
A Napier-Hastings bus trip takes about 50 minutes and Mr Patterson said they would be happy to provide an express service if people would use it.
Nimon was losing money providing a public transport service because the 140 percent increase over the last five years in the price of diesel had not been factored into the agreement, general manager Pete Patterson said. That was not the Hawke's Bay Regional Council's fault, he said.
Mr Patterson and regional council chief executive Andrew Caseley both said the last thing they wanted to do was cut public transport services. Mr Patterson said they had increased advertising in a bid to attract more passengers.
"One of our biggest enemies is parking spaces - there's too many of them. If they were cut, then more people would take public transport."
Nimon would love to provide a more frequent service that started earlier and finished later, Mr Patterson said. But they were waiting to hear from the regional council what people wanted.
Under the concessionary fare agreement, the regional council subsidises public transport by paying the difference between the full adult fare and the concessionary fares others pay.
Mr Caseley said the regional council would survey the public in the new year as part of a review of the regional land transport strategy.
Providing public transport was not easy: "It's a struggle, even in densely populated areas. It's always going to be challenging with the nature of the Kiwi psyche."
That Napier and Hastings were not densely populated and separated by 20km made it even more so, Mr Caseley said.
If there was a demand for an express service it would be looked at.
"The difficulty is people want an expanded service but it's got to be economically feasible."
There was no point in having only a handful of people riding a bus.
The regional council receives funds from Transit to subsidise public transport but must match every dollar with money from its targeted public transport rate.
"I never use it. Why am I being asked to pay for it?" was a common complaint from landowners in metropolitan Napier and Hastings.
The council was reluctant to increase the targeted rate, currently levied at $8.50 per $100,000 of land value.