Transport and health in New Zealand – Buses in Dunedin

I have tried – and failed – to create a separate page for my work-related Transport and health blogs. I was able to create one, but have not been able to add new blogs to that page, only to this main page. So people looking for reports of TALES will either need the very specific URLs or will need to scroll through my travel ramblings. Sorry!

Dunedin buses – “Common courtesy”

For a Londoner, buses in New Zealand are strange in several ways.

Disadvantages, compared with London

There are very few routes and buses are very infrequent (just as in much of the UK, outside London and a few other places). Presumably the argument goes that so few people use the buses, it isn’t worth running more. But if they were more frequent, and didn’t stop running so early, more people would use them! If we go to salsa (which starts at 9pm in Dunedin), we have to leave after an hour to catch the last bus back to Maryhill – or get a taxi.

Some routes have one number when travelling in one direction, and an adjacent number for the return journey. So the two buses that go to and from Waverley are the 10 / 11 and the 19 / 20. If you don’t know that, and the driver has forgotten to change it round, you miss your bus – which is a greater inconvenience when they come only once every 30 or 60 minutes.

Ths bus times are approximate, so it behoves one to arrive at least 5 minutes if not 10min before the stated time, to avoid missing it.

Advantages

Every bus has a rack at the front (outside) that takes two bikes. The only problem is you have to put it on without the driver’s help but it is so low I expect I can manage. I may cycle to the university but if it’s pouring or I’m too tired to tackle the very serious hills, I can wimp out on the way home.

The bus driver waits for passengers to be seated before driving off! Truly! The first time I took a bus, I walked towards the back, as usual, leaving front seats for those less able to walk (but I have seen very few of them on buses – maybe they don’t use buses or maybe they travel at different times from me), took off my backpack, and realised we were still stationary, so I sat down quickly and the bus then moved off. I know I have grey hair and I was touched that the driver waited for me to sit. Later in the journey I realised that he waited for each passenger to sit down, not just the apparently old. This morning I was on an almost empty bus and chatted with the driver. He was surprised when I asked if it was company policy and training to wait for passengers to sit down before driving off. “It’s common courtesy”, he replied. “Dunedin isn’t like London: we have plenty of time.”