As a person who has lived in Switzerland for a year, I have become extremely reliant on public transport. This means, that when I went back to New Zealand for 2 months over summer, I was horrified at the stark contrast between the two countries, and as a result, have become rather outspoken and opinionated on the subject (surprise!)

There are two main problems, as I see it, with public transport in New Zealand. For the purposes of this blog post I am purely going to talk about commuter public transport in Wellington, not intercity transport, which is so bad it's almost non existent.

The two main problems are:

1. The public transport system is substandard
2. As a result, people don't take it, which makes it less likely to receive much improvement.

Obviously, this is a circular problem. The worse it is, the less people will use it, the less money will be spent on it, and so on forever.

So let's examine the first point in further detail.

Why do I think the public transport system is so bad? Well first, I must of course reiterate that I have been living in Switzerland, which has an exemplary public transport system. But even so, I think that Wellington's system is appalling. Here are some of the high (low) lights:

Lack of integrated ticketing.

I need a separate ticket for the bus, train and cable car. Yes, there is the snapper card now, which can be used on all the different buses. Can you use it on the trains? I don't think so but I could be wrong. Certainly you need a separate multi card or prepay card or whatever on the cable car. I didn't try to take any boats while I was in Wellington, but I doubt that is integrated as well. I know that ticket integration is a hard problem to solve, but the fact that other cities have integrated ticketing means that it's not insurmountable.

Why does this matter? People are less likely to take public transport if they have to remember to carry multiple different cards with them, or have to buy a ticket each time they travel. In Switzerland, I am one of the lucky people to own a "GA" - this is a year pass for all trains, buses, trams, boats, in the whole country. Even before I had that, I had a "Halbtax" card, which got me reduced ticketing on all these services, even when I had to buy a ticket before I travelled.

Unreliability.

While there are certainly some good bus routes in Wellington, the majority are extremely unreliable. This is not even to touch on the trains, which are in an awful state (I was stuck in Tawa (Tawa!!) for two hours on a Wednesday night until a kind soul drove me back to Wellington). The timetables are frequently laughable. I remember getting on a half hour service to Gracefield a few years ago, which had come 25 minutes late, and I asked the driver whether he was 25 minutes late or 5 minutes early, and he didn't know. He literally didn't know what route he was supposed to be on, but was just driving in a circle while his shift was on.

Aside from the unreliability of the timetables, I could also complain about the infrequency of the buses. The number 20, for example, finishes very early during the week. I have become quite used to buses and trams coming every 5-15 minutes, so a half hour service seems extremely long to me.

Car culture.

This is really the killer for me, and the hardest to combat. I really think in New Zealand, the car is still seen as a status symbol by many people, and public transport is seen as something for the lower classes. I believe this comes from an American influence actually. I was waiting for a bus in rush hour traffic in Kelburn to go into Wellington, watching car after car drive past with a single person in it, only to get on the bus when it (finally) arrived, to find it almost empty, with only 4 other people on it.

Before I moved to Switzerland, I was completely against the segregation of classes in public transport, but I have come around to believe that it's actually a positive thing. We have a first class and second class system on the trains here - so people that want their status symbol can still travel first class, and everyone else who doesn't care (and doesn't want to spend extra money on it) walks a bit further down the train to the start of the second class carriages, and pays less. It gets the status symbol people out of their cars and into public transport, and helps subsidise it for the rest of us.


I still feel a deep love for New Zealand, and Wellington in particular, but I find this issue so depressing. I wish that New Zealand was being more forward thinking on sustainable (or at least, less unsustainable) transport, and investing in public transport infrastructure, instead of building more roads for more cars. I hate to see the country I love so much falling further and further behind in this area.