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Apple Orchards, or 21st Century?

The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has demanded an end to excuses, and immediate funding to bus route 307 from Mitcham to the City via Doncaster, to provide an adequate, usable bus network fitting in with 21st-century lifestyles, not those of the 1950s.

“The government must assume we are all idiots and that paying lip service to the issue will solve placate residents. It’s clear that the people of Manningham have had enough and demand action”, PTUA spokesman Christopher Trikilis said.

Bus route 307 runs the length of Doncaster Road past many of Manningham’s leisure, residential and commercial centres such as Doncaster Shoppingtown and the Doncaster Park+Ride on its way from Mitcham Station to the City. Yet the bus does not have services at nights and has a curtailed Sunday service that terminates in Donvale rather than at Mitcham, – an anomaly that Mr. Trikilis said made sense when that surrounding area was orchards, but holds little relevance today.

Mr. Trikilis said that the State Government was stuck in a time warp, assuming that Manningham was still rural and all surrounded by orchards as back in the 1950s, because “they condemn us to have lifestyles from that era and so think the hopeless frequencies are more than adequate. We have had changing working and retail hours, and the bus network has not developed alongside this. Night services until midnight and an hourly or better service on Sundays through to Mitcham would attract passengers and finally bring the bus service up to a decent level.”

“Waiting two hours for a bus on a Sunday, or not having a bus service at all at nights shouldn’t be on. So much of Melbourne has inadequate bus services and the government seems quite keen for the status quo to continue. However when you are in an area like Doncaster there is no other alternative because the government refuses to commit to heavy rail along the Eastern Freeway or extending tram 48”, said Mr. Trikilis.

“The government must stop condemning the people of Manningham to transport inadequacy. They have the opportunity to give usable and reliable services to the community, and now is the time to do this. We are not a third-world city, and we definitely do not deserve this current third-world bus network”, concluded Mr. Trikilis.

Contacts:
PTUA Office 9650 7898