26 March 2012

Nightrider redux?

| johnboy
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The Greens are wondering why the Nightrider buses are confined to the warm months, and if we can have it again?

Last Summer’s “Nightrider” bus service carried a record breaking number of patrons, according to data obtained by the ACT Greens.

The data also reveals the ACT Government trebled the advertising budget for the service for the four weekends in 2011, compared to the money it spent advertising the Greens’ three-month Nightrider trial over the 2010-11 Summer.

“We were disappointed by the Government’s minimal advertising for our expanded 2010 Nightrider. The Government also charged double the fare in 2010. We said all along if it was promoted properly, people would use Nightrider. It’s great to see the record 2011 patronage results are proving this,” said Amanda Bresnan, ACT Greens’ Transport Spokesperson.

“The Greens are now focused on making Nightrider a permanent and longer running service, so that Canberrans can take safe and convenient public transport at night.

“When I questioned Chief Minister Katy Gallagher about expanding the service to run for a longer period – such as every weekend or for the entire summer – she revealed there is no guarantee Nightrider buses will run at all:

“The consideration at the moment focuses on finding the funding to run the service again at Christmas time. It does not have recurrent funding … additional resourcing for ACTION is obviously subject to budget consideration”. – Ms Gallagher, Question Time, 23 February 2012

“We believe there should be recurrent funding to at least make Nightrider a permanent December service. There is also considerable opportunity to expand the service, to provide more and safer transport options for Canberrans.

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blub said :

buzz819 said :

I think they should look at it from a crime prevention point of view, the faster they get people out of the city, the less people there are to get assaulted, robbed, etc. The cheaper it is to get people out of the city, the less people that will be done for drink driving and other related charges.

So that the drunk people can assault or rob you in the suburbs where there’s less cops? Cops are in the city for a reason on Fri and Sat nights, b/c that’s where the people and the problems are. If you move the people out to the burbs it just means you gotta increase your police patrols capacity, which will probably triple the costs…

But I agree with Haas – Rapids running until later, even on 30min frequency would be great!

Most people who catch the night rider is doing so because they want to get home, not because they want to cause trouble for people out in the suburbs.

I’d hazard a guess that most of the violence occurs in the city on a Friday \ Saturday night not as a premeditated crime of passion, but instead because a drunk arsehat thought another person looked at them funny. Dispersing people is a really good way to prevent that from happening, and a very quick and good way of doing that is by offering a good public transport option, (as you don’t want such people to get behind the wheel of a car)

buzz819 said :

I think they should look at it from a crime prevention point of view, the faster they get people out of the city, the less people there are to get assaulted, robbed, etc. The cheaper it is to get people out of the city, the less people that will be done for drink driving and other related charges.

So that the drunk people can assault or rob you in the suburbs where there’s less cops? Cops are in the city for a reason on Fri and Sat nights, b/c that’s where the people and the problems are. If you move the people out to the burbs it just means you gotta increase your police patrols capacity, which will probably triple the costs…

But I agree with Haas – Rapids running until later, even on 30min frequency would be great!

I’d prefer the rapids to run through until 3, 4 AM on Friday or Saturday nights year round. That may not be practical given the staffing costs of ACTION Buses.

The Chief Minister is being disingenuous when she claims that the Nightrider service may not occur in 2012/13.

1. It has run for over ten years, and the 2010 experience was in the views of some, deliberately distorted to be a failure, to derail the commitment that the ALP had given to the Greens on that issue.

2. The 2011/2012 Nightrider service was successful not just in patronage, but drunks prevented from driving home and the negative outcomes that entails.

3. Funding for Nightrider services comes from the increased fees charged to licensed establishments in Canberra. If the Chief Minister proposes to no longer offer a Nightrider service – does she plan to reduce the licensing fees ?

I think the ALP should be ashamed of using this public safety program for political gains against the Greens. Whether this greens proposal gets up or not, its important that the discussion be held rationally and not with the starting point being in partisan politics aimed at the 2012 Assembly campaign to eliminate minority government.

I think they should look at it from a crime prevention point of view, the faster they get people out of the city, the less people there are to get assaulted, robbed, etc. The cheaper it is to get people out of the city, the less people that will be done for drink driving and other related charges.

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