Article: Little hope for Brunswick bus route favoured by aged

[ozbob]

From the Melbourne Age click here!

Little hope for Brunswick bus route favoured by aged

Little hope for Brunswick bus route favoured by aged
August 10, 2012

THE Hope Street bus route in Brunswick, Melbourne's shortest but a vital service to many elderly people, will be shut down next month under the order of Public Transport Victoria.

Buses have run the two-kilometre route along Hope Street, shuttling between the Sydney Road and Melville Road tram lines, for almost 60 years. But the service has been judged ''unsustainable'' by the state's public transport planners, because it is ''currently carrying less than one passenger per trip''.

Joe Piccolo, the owner of the Hope Street Bus Line, which has a fleet of just two buses and employs three drivers, said the service's demise would have a devastating effect on some of its most regular passengers, who depend on it to get around.

''A lot of elderly people take the bus and they're going to be devastated if it goes,'' Mr Piccolo said.

Public Transport Victoria has ordered Hope Street Bus Line to quit operating by September 30. Mr Piccolo was yesterday seeking legal advice.

Passengers on the Hope Street bus fiercely defended the service yesterday.

''People use this bus extensively to shop at Sydney Road,'' said Rob Kennedy.

''You see a lot of elderly women with shopping trolleys, things like this. And the drivers are friendly and helpful to them.''

''I've been using it for 10 years so I'd hate to see it go,'' said Helen Cattapan, while riding the bus up a taxingly steep hill at Hope Street's western end.

Thi Truong, laden with shopping bags, said she used the bus three times a week to shop for her family.

''It's a wonderful bus, but it should be more regular,'' she said. The bus arrives every 20 minutes until 7pm, taking 10 minutes to travel from one end to the other.

One valued feature of the hyper-local service is the drivers' habit of picking up and dropping off passengers wherever they like. ''We don't have stops, this is like a taxi,'' driver Mel Hatzigeorgiadis said.

''Wherever I see people hail me, I stop.''

Bus Association chief Chris Lowe, however, questioned the route's sustainability at a time when transport planners were seeking to better integrate Melbourne's trains, trams and buses. Former Brunswick mayor Mike Hill said the route was ''a bit of an anachronism''.

Public Transport Victoria said two other bus routes on nearby streets a few hundred metres north and south of Hope Street would continue to run services ''that offer the same connections to intersecting tram routes, but run for longer hours with better connections to trains''

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/little-hope-for-brunswick-bus-route-favoured-by-aged-20120809-23x4l.html#ixzz234YMxFDf

[ozbob]

http://media.smh.com.au/news/national-news/melbournes-shortest-bus-route-faces-the-axe-3541717.html

[Gazza]

The only reason people love this is because it's run by the "little guy", and is the very defintion of a bus route that is a 'historical oddity'.

If there's other routes nearby, and for those genuinely unable to work, just run paratransit.

[SurfRail]

The patronage on the route is actually quite reasonable, and the cost would be negligible.

I earnestly believe the only reason they want to close it down is because it is one less operator to deal with.

[Gazza]

It's still waste, and the funds and 2 buses could be redeployed as a rail feeder in an outer suburb etc.
Or at the very least, if we are talking about helping the elderly, use the funds for a communtiy bus that doesn't just trundle along the same 2km stretch of road....Actually serve the elderly who aren't privileged enough to live on Hope St.

How it sits in the network, its the green random little loop near Brunswick station:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Hmm, maybe its time for another equally useful route. I introduce (Drumroll) Norethumbeland Rd Buslines:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

People have blogged on its silliness since 2006 http://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com.au/2006/02/how-to-kill-bus-route-some-bus-routes.html