Getting a bus to TAFE in Kingscliff from Mullum is a three hour journey – and doesn’t take into account the time you might need to get there or that you might want to get home. And that’s if you don’t have to get to town to in the first place. This is the type of challenge that many young people and people without vehicles face in the Northern Rivers; there is a lack of public transport that can get people to educational and work facilities in a timely manner or get them home at the end of the day.
This week has seen the NSW government run a series if public forums in Murwillumbah and Lismore, the Bus Industry Taskforce, to hear first hand about local bus issues.
‘Bus services carry 40 per cent of all public transport passengers but receive only two per cent of capital expenditure in transport,’ said member for Lismore Janelle Saffin.
‘The Taskforce today released its second report outlining plans to fix the deterioration of bus services including:
- addressing more than a decade of neglect of investment in school and local bus services
- a plan for the rollout of zero emission buses
- modern, fit for purpose bus contracts in the regions.
‘The report recognises that bus services in rural and regional areas have not been given the same degree of attention as services in Sydney,’ she said.
Get your voice heard
The challenges that people face across the region need to be heard and you can still provide feedback to the taskforce until 31 March.
‘This week’s public forums in the Northern Rivers have provided valuable information and insights into our transport needs,’ said Ms SAffin.
‘This will inform the Taskforce’s final report which is due to be presented to the Government in May.’
Anyone who missed the forums can also email the taskforce directly with their input: [email protected] or provide feedback through a survey or submission at this site until 31 March at: https://www.haveyoursay.nsw.gov.au/bus-industry-taskforce
Gosh! If only there was a local train service across the region. Wait, where have I heard that before?
Which TAFE colleges are readily accessible from train stations?
I believe that it is along the “lines” of .. If you build the train stations, then the TAFE colleges will come.
How on earth Ms Saffin can have the front to talk about public transport difficulties is unfathomable.
Yes AFFORDABLE and sustainable public transport has been a disaster in the Northern Rivers for many years, and has been made even worse since MS Saffin’s Labor Party closed the one train service between Casino and Murwillumbah and ignored the outrage in the community which was calling for increased commuter train services and the line to be connected to the Qld rail system at Coolangatta so that millions of people using the airport could travel to Byron Bay, and other towns along the line whith trains stations in the centre, in a more sustainable way.
So while emissions from transport have risen by 22% since 2005, and our communities face catastrophic climate disasters, they replaced the train with expensive large coaches which people with mobility problems (not necessarily using wheelchairs) cannot use, which is why these expensive coaches are mostly empty. This is an absolute disgrace and waste of taxpayers’ money!!
Now, despite the fast growing population and need for train services for locals and 5.2 million tourists to the LGAs along the train line, the Labor Party and the LNP, who promised commuter train services on the line for many years, are all happy to spend as much taxpayers’ money destroying the train line for ‘cycling tourism’!!
If these people were employed in the private sector and wasted shareholders’ money in this fashon they would face dismissal and prosecution. But politicians are immune from accountability.
How will people get to Ballina, Wollongbar, Kingscliff or Tweed Heads TAFES by train Louise? How is a ramp to a bus less accessible than a ramp to a train, or, in what other ways are buses more difficult for people with mobility issues. Trains are great, but that old alignment no longer services the major facilities of the area. There is much more to the Northern Rivers than can be found from Casino to Murwillumbah.
This is appalling why are the regions overlooked continually in relation to public transport!! There is none here at all !
Catching the bus on time from Lennox head to TAFE Wollongbar is a challenge. The afternoon bus time schedule leaves TAFE wollongbar at 4PM, but many TAFE classes finish at 4pm, so students have to leave class early to catch the bus home, this affect the course learning students need. The morning bus schedule is silly 7.30 am from Lennox head to get to TAFE Wollongbar for a 9 am class (What about breakfast).
TAFE should have its own bus route from Lennox head to TAFE Compas Wollongbar. Wollongbar to Lennox head without, using the same bus as the teenager students schools to make the bus route shorter to get from wollongbar to Lennox head in the afternoons. It TAFE had its own bus route that would make it better for many TAFE students.
Some roads the bus goes down are dangerous for both the passengers and bus driver when the bus has to reverse.
Some good things about the bus in the Northern Rivers region is you know you can trust the bus driver will get you to TAFE safely and the student fee is a good discount.
“challange” is a common misspelling of “challenge”. It does not have a definition of its own, and using it in place of “challenge” would be incorrect.
Yep highlights the lack of a train service once again incredible not to have trains running from Grafton to the gold coast with bus connection at the stations that’s how you get a good bus service that carries plenty of punters and turns a profit stand alone bus services only service to certain destinations and are not always frequent pity tim Fischer is not alive we may well have got the train back on
Now if only the local train groups would push for a modern railway system following the M1 , just like the Varsity Lakes to Brisbane twin track heavy rail .
The local train groups don’t want modern rail , they keep pushing for a slow heritage train . Heritage train journeys don’t receive government fare subsidy as the rolling stock does not comply with mobility access laws .
Buses can pick up workers , elderly,unemployed and everyone else from almost their front doors and drop them at their destination without modal transfer, something that the slow meandering old Northern Rivers railway can never do and is always locked at a very slow speed because of its steam age alignment tight curves .
The community has been campaigning for. and promised for many years, a modern, affordable, government run commuter train service, not another tourist train which does not provide affordable public transport for locals or tourists. Buses are NOT accessible for the elderly or anyone with reduced mobility. They are uncomfortable on our dangerous, rough roads, get stuck in traffic gridlock and cost taxpayers heaps as few people use them.
For over 100 years the trains were always used by locals and tourists to get to the towns with stations close to or in the centre, and to get to and from school and shopping. Even the slow XPT was usually full and sensible people avoided using it at holiday times or schoolies. The trip from Lismore to Byron and Mullum, despite the decrepit train line, was much faster than driving, with no parking problems on arrival.
People need to make up their minds. They claim no one will use trains on the C-M line-records show they did- as it doesn’t go to Ballina or Tweed, then they say billions should be spent building a line along the M1 which by passes all towns, including Ballina and Tweed!!! Tweed people wish those using the expensive bike track could travel with their bikes on the train to Crabbes Creek, Stokers Siding, Burringbar, Mooball, and leave their monster gas guzzlers at home.
No government will spend billions on a train line that locals and 5.2 million visitors will NOT use as it bypasses the towns they need to get to, especially Byron. The billion dollar line we already have needs to be repaired and utilised-and the rail connection to Coolangatta built as promised!! NOW!! The cost of repaires to the Byron section of line-$660,000 per kilometre- demonstrates it will be cost effective compared to roadworks. Otherwise we’ll all be paying billions for new roads and road upgrades to jam even more gas guzzlers in our once idyllic towns!!
Can’t wait for that.