Go-ahead for united front

Christchurch’s mayor and the chair of Environment Canterbury (ECan) will now join forces to ask the Government to fast-track a major upgrade to Christchurch’s bus services.

The Christchurch City Council and ECan have endorsed allowing mayor Lianne Dalziel and regional council chair Jenny Hughey to approach Transport Minister Michael Wood about securing additional funding to speed up the work.

The upgrade, expected to cost at least $108 million, has already been planned out and funded by the region’s councils – but the money is spread over more than a decade.

It is hoped with more funding, it can be done in five years.

The plan includes 100 extra buses and 22 kilometres of new bus lanes.

It would also convert Christchurch’s five core bus routes to a ‘‘turn-up-and-go’’ model where a bus arrives every 7.5 minutes between 7am and 7pm on weekdays.

Presently, Christchurch’s bus services have been reduced to weekend timetables during the week due to a driver shortage.

Christchurch City councillors Mike Davidson and Sara Templeton, and ECan councillors Vicky Southworth and Lan Pham, have led the charge to fast-track work on the bus upgrades.

Davidson said during a recent public meeting that co-investment with central government would allow the council ‘‘to deliver more for our communities and quicker’’.

Cr Pauline Cotter said Christchurch needed a good public transport system and accelerating the $108m upgrade would get us there.

‘‘We’ve heard the saying, ‘build it and they will come’ – fix up our public transport system, make the buses attractive, reliable, frequent and desirable to use and people will use it,’’ she said.

Some city councillors were against making an approach to the transport minister.

Cr Aaron Keown said he did not think a 21st century city would have transport based around buses, and Christchurch was not dense enough for a bus or train system.

‘‘We need to think of other ways to do transport. Just putting buses on does not get people on buses.’’