New bus service mooted from Rolleston-Chch
A survey by Bentley is currently open until Sunday to gauge interest and determine if the service would be commercially viable.
The existing bus service, operated by Environment Canterbury, is regularly at capacity, and often has to leave people at bus stops.
Between January and April this year, ECan's service had an average patronage of 6309 people a month, peaking at 7730 passengers in March.
Bentley Coachlines owner Liam Bentley said the response to the survey has already been promising. Within 24 hours of starting the survey, he had about 250 respondents with 40% not currently using the ECan buses, but about 95% saying they would use the Bentley service.
'There is definitely a clear theme of Rolleston traffic getting bad and current existing services, while they are working well, they just can't cope with the demand,' he said.
For its new service, Bentley has proposed two possible routes: One starting on Westmoor Blvd in the eastern part of Rolleston and the second starting at Foster Park and travelling along Brookside Dr.
Because it is a fully user-pay system, Bentley said their bus would cost about $3.50 per trip, about 50c more expensive than ECan's service when the price rises from $2 to $3.
'It's a wee bit more, the idea with ours is that you don't have to drive your car to a park and ride, the bus will service the subdivisions.'
The ECan service runs four times from 6.35-7.30am leaving from Faringdon Blvd and stopping at Kidman St.
When it gets to the city, it stops at Christchurch Hospital, the bus interchange, and Ara Institute.
Bentley said its service would stop at the same points in the city.
ECan is planning to expand its service. Last week, ECan councillors voted in favour of a two-year trial of an expanded service.
What the expansion looks like is not yet clear, with ECan planning a service review to find the best way improve the service.
The expanded service is predicted to come online either at the end of this year or early next year.
If Bentley decides to proceed with its service, the route will still need to be approved by ECan.
At the same meeting, councillors chose not to progress a Darfield to Rolleston bus trial due to a lack of support in public submissions to its 2025/26 Annual Plan.
ECan received 248 submission from the areas of Darfield, West Melton and Kirwee which would have been paying the targeted rate, of those 79% of respondents did not support the trial.
The biggest problem with the service was that most of its funding was coming from a targeted rate between $140 and $179.
ECan agreed to cancel the trial, seven votes to six with one abstention.
• To respond to the Bentley Coachlines survey, head to bentleytransport.co.nz
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