There was a Dad and his three or four year old daughter on the bus with me today, and it got me thinking about how rarely we see this kind of situation – a parent taking their child with them on the bus to work. I assume he would have been dropping her off at some inner-city daycare centre or kindergarten before heading off to work himself. She was having a great time, pointing out all the other buses she saw, pointing out the Sky Tower when we went past it and so on.
There are a couple of reasons why I think it’s sad that parents don’t take their children on public transport more often. I have tried to take a few opportunities to take my five year old daughter on the bus and train over the past year or so – and she’s really loved it too. It makes the journey to wherever you’re going part of the whole experience and adventure for them, and she particularly enjoyed riding the train as it went through the tunnel near Glen Innes on the Eastern Line. But anyway, I digress, the first reason why I think it’s great to take kids on public transport is that it makes them aware of it. I know that throughout my childhood the only times I ever really went on the bus was for school trips, and it certainly gave me a very car-centric view of the world by the time I was a teenager. I remember once looking at the railway line next to the Southern Motorway, seeing the rail signals and thinking it was unfair how the railway system got ‘traffic lights’ whenever it wanted them, but a couple of nasty intersections near where I lived didn’t. The cities that I drew as a teenager were full of motorways and rarely had any rail lines, I thought that all congestion could be solved by simply widening motorways or building more of them and so on.
It wasn’t really until I visited Sydney in 2000 and 2001, and used their train system regularly to get around, that I realised how useful public transport could be. By that stage I was also catching buses into university each day, so I was certainly aware of it – but Auckland’s public transport system was pretty rubbish back then (it arguably still is) so Sydney was a real eye-opener for me. I think a lot of the ‘car-centric’ viewpoints we see from politicians and the general public simply exist because people just don’t use public transport and didn’t grow up with it being a ‘normal’ way to get around the place. Making public transport seem, to children in particular, like a normal way to get around is a pretty key step in moving away from our auto-dependence in the longer-term.
The second reason why I think it’s sad parents don’t take their kids on public transport more often is that it stifles their independence in the longer term. I didn’t have a clue about how Auckland’s bus system worked until just before I started university. Throughout high school I only very occasionally caught a bus – usually when travelling with friends into town and out again. I didn’t know how the stages worked, I didn’t know what it cost, I usually just mumbled to the bus driver “same for me” when getting on – it was pretty embarrassing actually. I remember one day I ended up having to catch a bus home from town but didn’t have a clue which one to get or where to get it from. I ended up catching a Richmond Road bus, just because it was the bus that I had caught with my friends, and walked quite a long way from the end of Richmond Road to home.
All of this lack of understanding made me very reliant on my parents to get me around, although I did use my bike quite a bit. It also reduced my understanding of how Auckland worked and made it seem much more difficult for me to do something as simple as head into town to meet my friends, than it should have been. It is difficult to calculate what the actual costs of this ‘lack of independence’ were, but I know many international books that I’ve read put down the lack of independence children have due to our auto-dependence as a huge negative effect of the way in which our cities and transport networks have developed over the past few decades.
So I do think it’s important for parents to take their children on the bus or train with them. It is important to teach your child how to use the bus system, to teach them where the routes go and what route they would need to catch to get to a certain place. It will provide them with a greater sense of independence, it will give them a much more rounded viewpoint on transport policy in the future and they’ll probably have a lot more fun than strapped into the back seat of a car.
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What is the cut off age for not having to pay a fare? I think that at the moment public transport really loses its cost advantage when taking kids especially with more than one. I think to solve this problem, accompanied kids should travel free, including high school kids.
I certainly agree with the independence issue that you raise. When I was 11 I moved form a provincial area with no public transport nearby to a house that was 5 minutes walk from Colombo St – a major public transport street with buses every 10 – 15 minutes. I really enjoyed the independence this gave me.
It would be interesting if you could compare children in Wellington who will be very used to using public transport to get around, to those in Auckland who are much less likely to use transport.
Being from a public-transport-dense country (Belgium) I was amazed and confused by the public transport set up in Auckland. Three-digit bus numbering, what was that all about, I was sure I could never get my head around a (theoritically possible) 1,000 bus routes. Plus there were all these different bus companies, sometimes using the same routes but you couldn’t transfer between them with one ticket. And then there were hardly any train lines or services on certaind days and hours.
Not much has changed in that respect over the 20 years I have been here (apart from the new Sunday train services, when they’re not working on the line)
Luke, free public transport is for kids under 5. I think in London all under 16s get free PT with their Oyster Cards.
And uroskin, yup it’s damn complicated. One of the reasons why Aucklanders tend to avoid it.
Some of my favourite childhood memories are catching the train in from the Hutt to Wellington. Even from the age of 8 or so I’d catch the train in and wander around the city.
I also used the train to school every day from the age of 12 to 18 – only now do I realise how unusual this experience is in NZ.
If you move from the burbs to Wellington, one of the ONLY drawbacks is you never need to catch the train again.
I think this early childhood experience has rubbed off on me, as even now in my thirties I don’t drive, and I much prefer to live in cities where it is not neccessary (currently Berlin where the PT is pretty good overall. There’s certainly no need to own a car.)
I also grew up and Wellington and used to dream about getting a job in the city and catching the train in everyday like my father did. As a child I only ever used a bus for school trips and it wasn’t until I moved to Palmerston North where I atually started using and understanding buses (a free service is a good service). The train service is very simple and we knew that the train came by at .15 and .45 to the hour into the city. Me and my mates used to alway nick our parents monthly passes so we could get into the city for free so we could “hang out” on saturdays.
The Green Party want to make PT free for children and cheaper for the high school age under their transport plan.
I think the mentality towards public transport of someone growing up in Wellington would be quite different to your average Aucklander growing up. It’s all part of a cumulative cycle towards better public transport provision (success breeds success).
It’s awesome how much kids love public transport – we should encourage that.
I think that children can also get into cycling to move around freely. Wellington is too steep for this and the train was just the ultimate!
But I agree, I think that more can be done to encourage parents to take their children on PT. Possibly education in schools could go along way to educating our young people
The whole “walking school bus” programme is a fantastic way for kids to gain independence, learn about their surrounds, reduce the number of cars getting kids to and from school and improve kids’ health.
Speaking on the issue with public transport knowledge, websites and other information technology could be improved. The MAXX website is quite good, as you can type an address in and location in and it tells you the fastest route, but an interactive map would good.
Secondly, such services should not just be avaliable at websites at home, but computers with access to the website could be placed in important bus stops e.t.c.
Improving the fare system is also important. I don’t know too much about the sitaution in Auckland, but in Wellington we do ma fare zone based system. However if you do two seperate bus trips in the same fare zone, you have to pay $3 instead of $1.50 (the cost of a one fare zone bus trip). Instead, smart cards should be done so you spend $1.50 for as much travel as you like in that fare zone. This means that I can catch a bus from my house in Upper Hutt to the Upper Hutt train station catch the train to Wellington, and get a bus from the Wellington railway station to university, traveeling through 7 fare zones for $8, instead of the $11 the trip currently takes (the extra $3 for the two bus trips).
Time-based ticketing (unlimited trips within a 2 hour window) rather than trip-based ticketing is a great way to get around those problems.
One thing that would be good for the website to real-time track buses. Having the ability to sit at the bus stop with your iPhone (or whatever) and actually see on a map where your bus is would be great.
The four Canadian cities in which I’ve used public transit in the last 12 months (Edmonton, Vancouver, Montreal & Hamilton) all had 90-minute time-based tickets. The first three also had integrated ticketing – can’t speak for Hamilton as I only used the one bus service, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t. Such ‘innovations’ seem entirely taken-for-granted in Canada, yet achieving them in Auckland is like pulling teeth.
I agree, it’s very important for kids to be aware of the PT system and that it’s actually a way you CAN travel, not just a way for people without cars or environmentalists to take.