Waikato Regional Council has announced changes to the Route 23 bus service. This means changes in services for both Raglan and Whatawhata bus users.
- Additional bus to run between Whatawhata and
Hamilton on school days - Withdrawal of Sunday and public holiday service
- Timetable change for morning services
1. An additional bus will run between Whatawhata and Hamilton on school days.
This 20 seater bus will depart Glentui Lane at 7.15am, stopping at Whatawhata and arriving at the Transport Centre at approximately 7.50am. It will return from the Transport Centre at 4.00pm, arriving at Glentui Lane at approximately 4.40pm.
»» This bus will operate on school days only, starting from Monday 28 May, 2012 and will be a trial service until the end of the 2012 school year.
2. The Raglan bus service on Sundays and public holidays will be discontinued.
Unfortunately the cost of providing the extra Whatawhata to Hamilton bus could not be met by fares or the additional funding put forward by Waikato District Council.
Therefore it was determined that the Sunday and public holiday service should be discontinued, and the money saved used to pay for the extra weekday capacity when there is a real need for
work and educational trips.
»» The last Sunday and public holiday service will operate over
Queens Birthday weekend – Sunday 3 and Monday 4 June, 2012.
3. The current 8.30am service between Hamilton and Raglan will move to a new departure time of 10.15am, and the 10.00am departure from Raglan to Hamilton will move to 11.20am.
This timetable change will help improve capacity by providing a useful connection time with long distance coaches at the Transport Centre in the morning. It will be easier to make a day return journey from Auckland or Hamilton to Raglan, and enable backpackers and tourists to travel to Raglan in the morning instead of trying to catch the busy afternoon departure.
»» This timetable change will take effect from Monday 11 June.
Timeline
From Monday 28 May, 2012
An additional bus will run between Whatawhata and Hamilton on school days.
From Tuesday 5 June 2012
The Raglan bus service on Sundays and public holidays will be discontinued.
From Monday 11 June
The current 8.30am service between Hamilton and Raglan will move to a new departure time of 10.15am, and the 10.00am departure from Raglan to Hamilton will move to 11.20am.
WRC apologise for any inconvenience these service changes may cause you.
That’s an incredible $25 per extra km of bus service run during the year. No wonder you missed out the “in a constrained funding environment we do have to make best use of our resources” quote from Regional Council’s manager and the bit about it costing an extra $51,000. Even if they weren’t withdrawing buses, it’d be an extra $6.74 a kilometre, slightly more than double a 12-seat taxi!
And why run the minbus at 4pm? Doesn’t that mean everyone will still try to crowd onto the bus 20 min earlier and those left behind might well be going beyond Glen Tui Lane?
How is this going to help tourism in Raglan? Also family and friends who used to be able to come for the weekend then back to school or uni or whatever on Sunday. This is not a ‘solution’.
Now they have purchased a small bus for use Hamilton-Whatawhata during the week, why isn’t that used on the Raglan service at the weekend, rather than sending the big mainly empty blue bus over and back?
I am shocked to hear that the Sunday bus service is being cut. We live out in Waitetuna and the bus was the one way that the older kids could get independently in and out of Raglan and into Hamilton. This really is not OK. We need to be getting cars off the road and encouraging more bus use and I for one expect a good service as I pay rates every year .
Of course I am pleased to hear that there will be another bus during the week, but it is not OK to cut one service to pay for another. Raglan has lost out to pay for a service to Whatawhata, how can that be? I for one will be making a complaint.