The public bus network in Wellington has failed the people of Ōwhiro Bay. As a small community of just over 2,000 people in the south of Wellington, we are not provided the bus services a suburb of our size requires. The current services provided by Metlink and the Greater Wellington Regional Council have done in the past and continue today to significantly underdeliver and under-represent our suburb. 

 

In 2018, Metlink implemented a significant redesign to the bus network in Wellington in the form of a hub-and-spoke model. In the time since, Ōwhiro Bay’s availability of routes and their reliability has been unable to compete with those seen in neighbouring suburbs. This has resulted in Ōwhiro Bay, a suburb that is not a hub, being left by the wayside regarding bus services. 

 

Before the 2018 bus network redesign, two bus routes serviced Ōwhiro Bay, Routes 4 and 29. The changes made in 2018 resulted in replacements and alterations to both of these services. Ōwhiro Bay’s main road, Happy Valley Road, was bypassed altogether in favour of extending the new routes to the Brooklyn Hub. Route 4 was disestablished and in its place, the 29e was created (a route which has since been replaced by the 39), an exclusively on-peak service. These changes were supposed to increase the levels of both on and off-peak service to Ōwhiro Bay. However, Ōwhiro Bay has seen a disproportionate deterioration in on-peak bus frequency. While suburbs like Houghton Bay, Lyall Bay, and Strathmore Park have seen increases in their on-peak services’ frequency, Ōwhiro Bay’s has only continued to get worse at a rate and level not seen anywhere else in Wellington city, seeing a 60% decrease in on-peak bus service availability when compared to pre-2018 levels.

 

Since then, the issue has only got worse. 2023 was not an easy year for the bus network; frequent cancellations and suspensions resulted in major disruptions and bus shortages for the vast majority of Wellingtonians. Ōwhiro Bay, however, received a disproportionate number of suspensions compared to other suburbs during this time. The 39, Ōwhiro Bay’s only peak-hours service, had almost 30% of its daily services suspended during the shortages. Route 39 was proportionally the most affected bus route during the 2023 shortages, despite being an exclusively on-peak service and the only one to service our suburb. This heavily impacted commuters' ability to get to and from work.

 

Ōwhiro Bay currently is the worst suburb for bus services in Wellington. A suburb should have bus services proportional to its population; this would ensure equal access to public transport for all residents no matter where they live. We have analysed 32 suburbs in Wellington City and have found this to be true throughout the network. The only exception to this trend is Ōwhiro Bay. A suburb with a population of just over 2,000 people, receives 57% fewer bus services in a day than should be expected. Ōwhiro Bay needs to have better bus services.

 

Having conducted public surveying throughout the suburb, we know that residents are incredibly frustrated and dissatisfied with the bus service. The significant lack of service has resulted in Ōwhiro Bay residents using private modes of transport despite there being a far greater desire to take the bus when compared to other suburbs. There is no reason for this to be the case. Ōwhiro Bay has a large population that wants to use the bus network but cannot due to the abysmal service. 

 

We are calling on Metlink and the Greater Wellington Regional Council to rectify these issues and adopt all the recommendations in our Report on the bus network in Ōwhiro Bay.

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- Better Buses Ōwhiro Bay

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