Baby or bussed
Martin Doyle
SOME babies can be positively dangerous.
I had a close encounter with one of them a few months ago and its teeth marks can still be seen in the part of my brain that assesses public transport. The baby incident occurred during a brief visit to Perth, in Western Australia. I was on a suburban train minding my own business when I became aware of a large nappy-clad hunk of blubber standing in front of me, feet apart, shoulders back, with a look on its face that mixed pride and aggression. It kind of stared you down. To round off this confrontational wall-poster image above the seat opposite, the baby clutched a red STOP sign with the words “Priority seat for Mum and me”. The small print listed different categories of people who should be offered the seat if they happened by while you sitting in it. I guess only Australians would indulge in that type of humour. But, by jings, it gets its message across.
And within the large span of inner Perth, I found something else that Wellington might take notice of: FREE BUSES. The buses are called CAT buses [Central Area Transit] and Perth is split into three colour-coded areas, covering about a hundred different stops. So you hop on a Red Cat, a Blue Cat, a Yellow Cat, depending on where you want to get to. And the 23 Cat buses are big, comfortable and powered by compressed natural gas. Wherever you are, you only have to wait a maximum of 10 minutes. Naturally, everyone uses them. So if no one pays, how does it benefit Perth, you might ask.
Answer: economically. It doesn’t matter if you run a lunch bar, a motorcycle shop, or an art supplies store, you’re going to do a lot better when such a vast percentage of the city’s population can quickly get to you without spending a cent. Basically, you get more customers. [And when they arrive, their money can be spent in your shop, rather than on bus fares or parking fees (and fines)].
This idea would work wonders in Wellington, where so many shops are in awkward locations. And even if you try to stop, even briefly to drop someone off, you have every chance of being ticketed by our Council parking piranhas. Wellington needs to Go Easy, bring in free buses (or even vans), and get the swarming masses moving. Imagine the good it would do to slightly out-of-the-way locations like Kaiwharawhara, Petone, Thorndon, Oriental Bay, and Newtown. Each of them would multiply its walk-in clientele by four or five times. A coffee would be as cheap in Newtown or Thorndon as it is in Post Office Square. And of course, residents who are trapped in these outer areas would swarm into the metropolis more often.
I had a close encounter with one of them a few months ago and its teeth marks can still be seen in the part of my brain that assesses public transport. The baby incident occurred during a brief visit to Perth, in Western Australia. I was on a suburban train minding my own business when I became aware of a large nappy-clad hunk of blubber standing in front of me, feet apart, shoulders back, with a look on its face that mixed pride and aggression. It kind of stared you down. To round off this confrontational wall-poster image above the seat opposite, the baby clutched a red STOP sign with the words “Priority seat for Mum and me”. The small print listed different categories of people who should be offered the seat if they happened by while you sitting in it. I guess only Australians would indulge in that type of humour. But, by jings, it gets its message across.
And within the large span of inner Perth, I found something else that Wellington might take notice of: FREE BUSES. The buses are called CAT buses [Central Area Transit] and Perth is split into three colour-coded areas, covering about a hundred different stops. So you hop on a Red Cat, a Blue Cat, a Yellow Cat, depending on where you want to get to. And the 23 Cat buses are big, comfortable and powered by compressed natural gas. Wherever you are, you only have to wait a maximum of 10 minutes. Naturally, everyone uses them. So if no one pays, how does it benefit Perth, you might ask.
Answer: economically. It doesn’t matter if you run a lunch bar, a motorcycle shop, or an art supplies store, you’re going to do a lot better when such a vast percentage of the city’s population can quickly get to you without spending a cent. Basically, you get more customers. [And when they arrive, their money can be spent in your shop, rather than on bus fares or parking fees (and fines)].
This idea would work wonders in Wellington, where so many shops are in awkward locations. And even if you try to stop, even briefly to drop someone off, you have every chance of being ticketed by our Council parking piranhas. Wellington needs to Go Easy, bring in free buses (or even vans), and get the swarming masses moving. Imagine the good it would do to slightly out-of-the-way locations like Kaiwharawhara, Petone, Thorndon, Oriental Bay, and Newtown. Each of them would multiply its walk-in clientele by four or five times. A coffee would be as cheap in Newtown or Thorndon as it is in Post Office Square. And of course, residents who are trapped in these outer areas would swarm into the metropolis more often.
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