I had another annoying experience with the 224 bus route today. I had a meeting at 10.30am in town, but needed to head to work in Avondale first to ensure that I was able to get myself Coldplay tickets. Mission accomplished, at a rather expensive rate, I then worked out my bus options to get into the city.
In the recent past I have tried to avoid the 224 route buses. The bus starts all the way out in Henderson for some absolutely unknown reason, which means that by the time it winds its way to Avondale it’s just about always 15 minutes late. Generally the only times I find myself catching it is when I’m actually waiting for the NEXT bus and find the 224 arriving a couple of minutes before it. So, I worked out the timetabling for the bus and looked to avoid it by instead catching the 9.40am 211 bus. The 211 route is far more sensible, and always runs on time pretty much. However, frustratingly today it ran a bit too well, and I must have missed it – even though I did get to the bus stop a couple of minutes before it was due. Of course, I didn’t realise this error until about 10 minutes later – always hoping that it was just around the corner. This meant that my next bus – at 9.55am – would be the 224.
And I just knew it would be late. As I said before, this bus never shows up on time and it consistently 15 minutes late. It’s pretty unbelievable that such a situation can occur, that a bus route is just accepted as OK when it ends up being 15 minutes late each and every time it operates. The main purpose of the inter-peak New North Road services is to provide a 15 minute frequency along New North Road, put together by 211 & 212 buses from the Rosebank peninsula, and 224 buses from New Lynn, and stupidly, Henderson. During the middle of the day the buses generally alternative, a 211 or 212 and then a 224. The problem is that the 224 buses take so long to complete their Henderson to New Lynn and then to Avondale section, that we actually end up with the 224s always being 15 minutes late, so therefore they actually come at the same time as the 211 or 212 route bus. So what should be a 15 minute frequency service effectively becomes a 30 minute frequency service, but stupidly with twice the number of buses that you actually need for that (pathetically low to be honest) level of service.
OK, well that’s my rant. I eventually got on the next 212 bus at 10.10am, so who knows when the 224 did actually show up. I was late for my meeting (although not too badly). Ugh, stupid stupid buses.
Time to annoy ARTA about it I think. They’re going to start to get to know me pretty well.
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