Public transport
The Greens are always keen for more and more people to use public transport, because it’s a much more efficient method of moving commuters in and out of cities than people driving alone in cars. The Quality of Life survey has much to say about public transport:
Geography. Wellingtonians are much more likely to use it than people in Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin or Hamilton. More than one in five Wellingtonians (21%) use public transport daily. Half that many Aucklanders (11.5%) do the same, and in Christchurch (7%), Dunedin (8%), and Hamilton (3%) daily public transport use is even less common. This suggests investment is needed in other regions to emulate Wellington’s public transport systems - the iconic trolley lines above our city streets are part of the capital’s charm.
Age. Young people (15-24 year-olds) in our cities are three times more likely (29%) to use public transport daily than 25-29 year-olds (10%) and six times more likely than 50-64 year-olds (5%). This makes intuitive sense: it has long been our cultural practice for students to use public transport to get to school and university and people entering the workforce to continue to do so until they can afford to buy a car. The automobile is still a status symbol in our society: buying your first car is a rite of passage almost as significant as buying your first house. There are plenty of convenience reasons why cars make sense for families, carting the kids around on buses being a big hassle. But using cars to drive by yourself from home to work is often as much a status thing as a convenience thing. Breaking down this “graduation” from the bus or train to the car - and the idea that as you get older you shouldn’t have to use public transport anymore - seems a key to increasing public transport use.
Ethnicity. NZ Europeans in our cities are much less likely to use public transport on a daily basis (9%), than peoples of other ethnicities: this usage compares unfavourably with 21% of Asians, 20% of Pacific peoples, and 15% of Maori.
Income. There seems no discernable difference in the public transport usage between people of different income ranges. This is unsurprising, in light of the finding that public transport was considered unaffordable by only 11% of those surveyed.
So, why don’t more people use public transport, then? Well, partly because of convenience. Aucklanders especially had a poor view of its convenience - 36% either disagreed or strongly disagreed that public transport was convenient. But what does all this mean? Well, it tells us what we already know: keeping the status quo won’t do anything to get more people on to using public transport. The incentives to doing so have to be much greater. It has to be made a cheaper, more convenient, more enjoyable experience than using your car. Eventually, commuting in a car by yourself will have to be made the opposite: expensive, inconvenient, time-consuming, and irritating. For now, though, the priority ought to be improving our public transport systems.
