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Elise Vollweiler is a writer based in Motueka.
COLUMN: There are buses roaming the streets of Motueka!
Multiple sightings are being reported, daily. (Well, week-daily.) It’s like we’re back in 2012, except that these buses are sleek and electric and… what glory… they have inbuilt wifi!
I worked for the Motueka iSITE about 66 million years ago, before bus services were forced into near-extinction by a rather unsustainable loop of rising costs for companies and passengers alike.
During my seasons at the information centre, there were four daily buses from Motueka for our customers’ convenience. From memory, these cost $14 one way to Nelson; half that for a child or student. Over time, the four daily buses became three, and then two.
Some time after I left that job, I believe we dropped to one bus, three times a week, and while it’s great to have something rather than nothing, it now costs $20 to get from Motueka to Nelson, one-way. That’s a fairly prohibitive price.
It is ridiculous to have a town the size of Motueka with such scant public transport, but transport is an expensive enterprise.
Martin De Ruyter/Stuff
The new buses will travel between Motueka and Nelson four times a day during the week.
For the past 18 months, the Coastal Bus has picked up some of the slack, filling the gaps on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays between Motueka and Richmond. Since the start of August, its weekday route now runs via the Moutere, which is a great broadening of the public transport net.
And now, as of a few days ago, Motueka is back with four regular buses each weekday, and bus stops scattered strategically across town.
SBL owns and operates the buses, Waka Kotahi provided funding for the bus stops and road markings, and the government is helping to subsidise the fares. The Tasman District Council will provide further bus stop infrastructure as funding allows.
I note all of this because I was curious about the impact on rates, and Jane Murray, TDC’s Transportation Planning Advisor, was able to offer some clarity.
This means that, in a far cry from the Mesozoic era, passage on our shiny new buses costs a paltry $2 per zone, which, if I’m reading the timetables correctly, means you can get from Motueka to Nelson for $6 one way.
Children under 13 are free, as are Super Gold Card holders on services between the hours of 9am-3pm. Under 25s are half-price, and so are Community Service Card holders, although those with any sort of concession card will need to get these loaded when they first get their Bee Cards. (These are your personal pre-loaded ticket card, like Wellington’s Snapper. Try the Motueka Library for yours, but be patient – their first 200 were gone in a flash and when I went in to grab one, they were waiting on more.)
BRADEN FASTIER/Nelson Mail
Nelson Airport is another new route for the eBus service.
The buses are weekdays only, which is a bit of a shame, but we still have the Coastal Bus for Saturdays, and Jane said that weekend buses are a bit further down the road – Motueka and Wakefield will get theirs in 2026.
The Coastal Bus also gets back from Richmond to Motueka right on 3pm – worth noting that as a possibility if you are on school run duty.
I still remember the frustration of trying to connect people to their various destinations via our increasingly sparse and inconvenient public transport options a decade ago, and so there’s a part of me that fears that this is all too good to be true.
Jane is confident that the services are here to stay. She says that in 2023, patronage is up 20% on pre-Covid levels (assumedly across the region – Motueka itself doesn’t provide a particularly robust data pool) and that the feedback has been very positive so far.
The TDC is hoping to continue to build momentum with these increased routes and low fares.
“We know people are excited to use the services, so we are very optimistic about the future of public transport in the region.”
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