Few and far between: You cannot understand a city without using its public transportation system.
Those who use Shepparton’s public buses are a hardy lot.
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To begin with, the timetable is so spacious you could ‘drive a bus through it’.
Near my house, a bus passes only every hour, and urban designers know an effective public service passes wherever you are every seven minutes.
That, however, is a major city standard, and so is probably somewhat generous for a regional centre, but surely we could expect every 20 minutes, starting much earlier and finishing well into the evening and then with a reduced service on weekends.
Here in Shepparton, the first service is not until 8am, and the last service for the day is about 6pm.
The services, however, start later on Saturday and end earlier. Shepparton doesn’t have any public bus services on Sunday.
Getting to and from work for many could be a problem, especially if they have to be there by 8am and then if you don’t finish until 6pm, you’re on ‘Shank’s pony’. That’s right, you are walking home.
And although that could be, and probably is, a ‘game changer’, meaning many won’t, or can’t use the service, there is another damning aspect: most of the city bus stops are little more than a post in the ground with a sign declaring the facility a bus stop, but with no cover from the rain, no protection from the sun and not even a seat.
Just recently, with the mercury nudging 40°C, I noticed an older man waiting at an Archer St bus stop, a shopping trolley nearby, perched on a narrow piece of fencing about 30cm high in the full afternoon sun. That almost equates with torture.
I checked out those stops within walking distance of my home (although I’m sure they would be too far away for most people), and only one, at the city’s railway station, had any sort of cover and somewhere to sit.
The remaining four were little more than a steel pole, with a sign attached declaring it was PT Victoria bus stop, with a schedule about halfway down and a number to call for more information.
The Baker St stop appeared quite new — it was a cement slab of about two by three metres with, of course, the necessary pole, but beyond that, absolutely bare, no cover and no seat, and around it, except to the roadside, which was asphalt, was bare dirt, not a blade of grass in sight.
A Melbourne worker recently transferred to Shepparton. Being ‘car-less’, she assumed the city’s buses would be ideal for commuting to and from work.
That dream was crushed immediately when she found her Myki card was useless and the scheduling was wholly inappropriate for her needs. She now has a car.
Public transport, such as our bus service, will become even more important as the world warms and everyone, from the individual to our local, state and federal governments, will be under pressure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Transport, in all its forms, is a major contributor to the world’s CO2 emissions. But one bus produces vastly fewer emissions than the 30 or 40 cars it replaces. With the added bonus, of course, that cities such as Shepparton do not need to find space to park those now redundant cars.
And so to whom do we sheet home the responsibility for our city’s inadequate bus service?
Well, most certainly not the private bus service we see trundling around the streets of Shepparton, as it has only responded to a contract offered by the Victorian Government.
The city council can only advocate on our behalf, and so our primary avenue for change is to take our case for a better public bus service to state Member for Shepparton Kim O’Keeffe.
Several years ago, I sat through a workshop in Melbourne where a Sydney-based public transport expert who had studied every aspect of his chosen field declared a public bus to be the fastest vehicle on the road.
Although it was not something I had thought about much before, the speaker had calculated the hours people worked to buy, fuel and service a car compared to the time it took to earn the three dollars needed to take a bus clear across the city (2016 prices).
Such a pragmatic view meant the bus was vastly faster than even the most sophisticated car.
Yes, our intra-city public transport users are a hardy lot, and the patience they show in waiting for the occasional bus will, I expect, be further tested as they wait and wonder when a service integral to their daily lives will be enhanced and expanded.
18°C