MORE than 100 letters have been forwarded to Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian highlighting concerns with the new Bathurst Buslines timetable.
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The timetable, introduced late last year, featured 27 new services across seven new routes. But it was met with widespread criticism from day one as passengers reacted badly to the changes.
Six months on, a group of dissatisfied passengers formed the Bathurst Bus Community Action Group (BBCAG) to bring attention to their concerns.
The group collected 108 individually-signed letters of complaint to forward to the minister and said they were still waiting to hear back from Ms Berejiklian’s office.
“The original signed letters were mailed by BBCAG in mid-July to the Minister for Transport via Registered Mail with scanned copies to Paul Toole, Member for Bathurst and Minister for Local Government, councillors on Bathurst Regional Council and Buslines Group,” the group said in a statement.
“On July 31, BBCAG members Jenni Brackenreg and Carole McDiarmid met with Minister Toole and fully briefed him during an hour- long meeting on the issues.
“Mr Toole stated he planned to talk to the Minister for Transport personally when he expected to be in Parliament during the following week.
“Jenni Brackenreg, Carole McDiarmid and Ray Wilson also met with the Mayor of Bathurst Regional Council, Gary Rush on August 4 to provide a thorough briefing of the issues. The timetable issue has also been discussed at two recent Bathurst Health Council meetings.”
Among the group’s concerns with the new timetable are claims it is unworkable because of poor connections, and buses run up to 20 minutes late.
A spokesman for Bathurst Buslines told the Western Advocate in July that the new timetable was designed to meet the demands of the majority.
“We are a bus service, not a taxi service,” he said. “While someone might want to catch a bus somewhere at 5pm on a Saturday, the majority of people don’t.”
The spokesman said connection times between the seven bus routes were reasonable, and members of the public also had the option of catching public school buses to get around town.
He said the small number of complaints received by Bathurst Buslines suggested the majotiry of passengers were happy with the new timetable.
