Budget bus blast

By Tania Martin
MONBULK Greens party candidate Jo Tenner has slammed the State Government for by-passing the need for extra train and bus links in the Dandenongs.
She said the State Budget offered the perfect opportunity to do something about the problem which plagues travellers.
“There is ample room for improvement,” Ms Tenner said.
This followed the release of the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) scathing report on the lack of bus-train links.
But State Government spokesman Chris Owner said the PTUA’s analysis of train-bus connections was out of date.
The report highlighted a poor co-ordination between train and bus timetables on many routes across Melbourne including in the hills.
It found only 37.5 per cent of train arrivals have bus connections and stations with 42.5 per cent of connections requiring commuters to wait more than 10 minutes.
PTUA president Daniel Bowen said good bus-train links were vital for public transport because many trip simply couldn’t be made using a single service.
“To make connections quick and easy, the network either has to have careful timetable co-ordination or have frequent services,” he said.
“But most of Melbourne’s public transport has neither.”
Ms Tenner said the Monbulk electorate came up poor in the study.
She said the train connections on the Belgrave to Lilydale route 663 averaged only a third of the trains linking up with buses and of those half exceeded a good waiting period of 10 minutes.
“Crowded car parks at train stations is a concern that has been raised with me by many people in the electorate.
“Some would like to have the option of catching the bus but feel that it is unreliable or that they are kept waiting too long,” Ms Tenner said.
But Mr Owner said ensuring buses connect with trains was not always easy, especially with multiple bus-train connections at stations.
He said on many occasions buses and trains run at different frequencies which can affect the linkages.
“Ensuring bus-train connections is not the only factor that informs how we develop bus timetables – sometimes they focus on after-work or after-school connections,” Mr Owner said.