COMMENT:

Hello, my name is Andrew Dickens and today I took a bus to work.

I thought I’d run you through the reason I chose public transportation today and can I stress it was my choice.

So the reason is highly bourgeois. Tonight I’m going to the Opera. The performance starts at 7.30 and if you’re not seated by then you miss half the opera. So I’ve booked a little Japanese place I know for Yakitori at 5.45pm. Here’s the plan - I’ll leave work at 5pm, walk to the restaurant, meet my date, eat my skewers, go to the Opera and Uber home.

So why did I bus in?

Total transportation cost for me will be $1.95 on the bus and I know that on a Thursday at 10pm it’ll cost $12 on the Uber. So that comes to $14. I know from last night when I went to the cinema that a car park for the Opera costs $16 for the night. So I’ve saved $2. But I also don’t have to worry about daytime carpark costs, or the running costs of the car. It was an economic choice to bus in and Uber home.

I’m saying this because with transportation issues in the news this week, I’ve got irritated with the ideologues who are trying to convince you that there is a conspiracy to get you out of your car. There is a propaganda stream against public transport, buses and trains and ferries, and bus lanes and cycle lanes which ignores a basic fact - no one forces people out of cars. People choose alternative transport.

Sometimes they choose it because they have no choice.

My sons bike to uni because they can’t afford a car. The cost, the maintenance, the petrol, the insurance, the parking. They chose bicycles. Jack biked yesterday in the big storm. I told him to take a bus but he really doesn’t like them. All he did was put a coat on. Cost him nothing.

On my bus at 9.45 this morning there were 34 seats and 25 people were on the bus. By the way that’s 25 cars not on the road, thank you very much. So the passengers were basically either young, old or minorities. Basically, they were poor.

I asked the lady beside me why she took the bus. She said she was divorced, working part-time and couldn’t afford the parking. I’m picking that most of the opponents of public transport investment have a car park at work. They’ve not had to rush out the door to get the Early Bird parking. Or turned up at 8.45am after a snarl up on the motorway to find the car park full and then spend an hour circling town for a park. I’m picking they’ve never had to leave work every hour to feed a meter and then found you’re 10 minutes late and you have a $12 ticket on top of your existing parking fees. I’m picking they’ve never driven in for four hours of part-time work and paid $25 for the privilege of parking.

A week of that and choosing a bus or bike starts looking good.

I’ve noticed a lot of people parking in inner-city suburbs and pulling an electric scooter out of the boot to scoot to work. Pays for itself in a month. People are choosing to do this. A lot of people are choosing to do this. On Sunday 23rd June, buses trains and ferries in Auckland will be free for the day to celebrate 100 million trips taken on public transport in a year. That’s 100 million cars off the road, thank you very much.

By the way, 3000 people work in my building. There are 240 parks. Do the parkers have any idea how the other 2750 adults in the building get to work?

I guess I get angry at the claim that public transport is an ideology because it is anti-freedom of choice. No one is forcing you out of your car but the opponents of public transport infrastructure spend are trying to force you back into a car when it's increasingly not working. It’s all a bit Marie Antoinette. The peasants are starving. Well, let them eat cake. They can drive into town do it.