Dialogue: Snobbery keeps Auckland's commuters chained to cars

By JENNY LYNCH*

You are standing at the bus stop. It is blowing a gale and rain is sheeting down. Your umbrella threatens to turn inside out and you are getting wetter by the moment. You glance at your watch. The bus should be here by now.

Your heart does a flip. What if it doesn't come? What if it has broken down? You'll have to wait 20 minutes for the next one. That will make you late for work. Cars speed by. At moments like these, you wish you could jump into one of them.

As a non-driver who has spent more than 30 years relying on buses, I have experienced a few moments like these.

Aucklanders are being encouraged to get out of their cars and on to public transport. So far they haven't been in any great hurry to do so. I am not surprised.

There are the obvious reasons. Buses are less convenient. They are slower. The service is seen as unreliable. (More perception than reality - only twice has my bus failed to show up.) Getting to the bus stop requires the use of one's legs.

We need more buses, more routes, greater frequency on some routes and, because of the variable weather and Aucklanders' peculiar aversion to raincoats, more bus shelters. We would also welcome greater access to timetables. I suspect many people haven't the faintest clue as to which buses run where and when.

Some of these matters are being addressed. The Link service caters for cross-city travel between shopping destinations, bus lanes ensure speedier travel for commuters on some roads and, on my Dominion Rd route, handsome, graffiti-proof (I hope) bus shelters have appeared in recent weeks.

New or more frequent services for (among others) Onehunga, New North Rd, Glen Eden and Mt Eden Rd are planned for the New Year.

Regardless of how much things improve, however, I predict that bus companies will still have an uphill battle persuading Aucklanders to leave their cars at home.

Why? I put it down to attitude. Or to be blunt - old-fashioned snobbery.

People look askance when I tell them I don't drive. I can see their minds working. "Poor thing, she can't afford a car. What is wrong with her? She must be thick. Fancy having to travel by bus. How downmarket can you get."

Buses weren't always seen as transport mainly for the less well-off. My Te Papapa and Penrose routes in the late 1950s boasted a fair sprinkling of briefcases among the Gladstone bags. In fact, two of my regular fellow travellers were a lawyer and a prominent company director.

In those days, of course, Auckland was smaller. Shopping centres such as St Lukes and Eastridge were not yet a gleam in the developer's eye. Most routes led straight to Queen St. And in my area, at least, there were always plenty of buses going that way.

But suburban growth and new patterns of commercial development changed all that. They provided a challenge that public transport failed to meet.

At the same time, the lifting of restrictions on buying new cars gave more people access to decent vehicles. New Zealand shed its embarrassing reputation as the last staging post for ghastly old bangers and the car became king.

Cars have always been associated with image. The car you drive says something about the kind of person you are, gives a clue to your family, financial and social standing. Remember the old jokes about Skodas and crimplene? For some young men, cars are virtually extensions of themselves.

Abandoning their beloved vehicles - even to get to work during the week - would be a trial too great to bear.

People in other parts of the world appear to have no such qualms. Just watch the commuters pouring off the ferries at Circular Quay in Sydney on a weekday morning. Business suits abound - for women as well as men. The same goes for the hordes piling on to the tube at the end of the day in London. The furled umbrella brigade is noticeably prominent.

I am not suggesting for a minute that public transport in Auckland comes anywhere near matching the scope and efficiency (English express trains excluded) of its counterpart in those cities. If residents in some of greater Auckland's outer suburbs had to rely on buses or trains to get around, they would be virtually stranded. Neither do I imagine that our buses will ever be able to guarantee comfortable rides every time. Having to stand is no fun - and anyone who expects children to automatically give up their seats, even for elderly people, would be out of her mind. (Whatever happened to the old rule that said children sitting while adults are standing had to pay full fare?) And then there are those awful rainy days ...

But taking the bus has its compensations. Buses are safer. And once you are seated, your trip is relatively hassle-free. After all, you don't have to concentrate on getting where you have to go. Not for you the dodgem tactics - Auckland drivers are notoriously discourteous and impatient - the white-knuckle wait as you miss the lights once again, the parking problems.

You have the chance to relax, the chance to think. As a commuter, I often planned my day's work on the morning bus. By the time I arrived at the office I would have tricky problems solved, awkward letters composed. And on the way home - well, it was bliss to sit back and not have to think at all.

That said, however, it is going to take a bit more than the prospect of safer, hassle-free travel to get more Aucklanders on to buses and encourage a further expansion of services.

Which brings me back to my original argument - snobbery, the reluctance of the affluent to rub shoulders with what they perceive as the carless underclass.

I can think of only one solution. Let our city fathers, planners and all those professionals at the forefront of trying to find a solution to Auckland's traffic woes grab their briefcases and head for the buses. Let them lead by example.

Only when people can be persuaded that public transport is an acceptable mode of travel for everybody will our buses be able to do their bit towards unclogging roads and making Auckland a better place in which to live.

* Jenny Lynch is an Auckland journalist.

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