Following on from the post on Trains, and some discussion there, Wellington also needs to be discussing its buses right now. You have until 4pm on Friday – ie tomorrow! to put in a submission to Greater Wellington Regional Council – gw.govt.nz – about the future of Wellington.

They’re consulting on the Wellington Public Transport plan – so that means routes, and that means what goes on those routes. Personally, I don’t know whether the route changes proposed are a good thing or a silly thing, or a bad thing. I just don’t venture into the suburbs enough to know whether these have been planned out well, or if it is a disaster. On paper, it seems ok to me. Am I wrong?

But also, and crucially they are consulting on what sort of traffic system they are proposing for the future. Followers of the news – and this blog – will know that it has been reported that they have ruled out Light Rail (if you ask me, because of some really faulty financial diagnostics), and they are planning on ruling out Trolley buses too. We are facing an all Diesel bus future, which to me is a huge step backwards.

Wellington IS the last place in Australasia to have a trolley-bus system, and it breaks down often because it is run down, in anticipation of this. If we had a well maintained system, it wouldn’t break down as much. A classic case of Catch 22 in all of Joseph Heller’s hellish logic.

But so, one thing is certain – you should go to the GW website, and fill out their dinky little form, and put it in to them ASAP, before 4pm tomorrow, because that’s the last chance we will ever have to have a say on the future of transport in this city…