Bustastrophe

There’s been alot of anger about Bustastrophe, the multi-faceted meltdown of Wellington’s public transport. While the anger has focussed on the last 10 months of change, the last ten years have seen Wellington’s public transport dead in the water. Indeed the graph above shows Auckland’s growth rate vastly outstripping ours. Wellington has added 2 trips per capita in these ten years, whereas Auckland has added 20 trips per capita. Auckland will soon have more trips per capita than us. I always thought Wellington prided itself on having the best city lifestyle of anywhere in New Zealand, but when it comes to transport at least, that will soon no longer be true.

So while Bustastrophe has been the catalyst for Wellingtonians public transport rage, it has more shown up a prolonged period of underperformance and underinvestment as much as anything else. This underinvestment led directly to Bustastrophe, as many of the…