The Otago Regional Council this week approved its draft 10-year regional public transport plan for public consultation.
Cr Alexa Forbes praised the plan at the council’s meeting in Queenstown this week for "still going forward" despite the central government putting the brakes on spending for things such as walking and cycling projects.
"It’s really, really good," Cr Forbes said.
"It kind of walks that line between our desire for an efficient and effective public transport system and a very difficult environment, and it’s quite progressive, given an almost regressive — probably a regressive — GPS [government policy statement on land transport]."
The Otago regional public transport plan 2025-35 is a strategic document that guides the council’s design and delivery of public transport services, information and infrastructure.
Like the council’s long-term plan, the 10-year document has an emphasis on how funding is spent after the first three years of its adoption, the 2025-27 period.
The three goals it embraces are reducing congestion and increasing "connection" across the region, reducing carbon emissions and improving air quality and making "active transport" — walking and cycling — the preferred way to get around for short trips in urban areas.
The plan also lays out a timeline for the rollout of electric buses under way.
In Dunedin, by the end of the year, 23% of the fleet (24 buses) would be electric and by the end of next year, 58% (62 buses) would be electric.
All 83 buses in the Dunedin fleet would be electric by 2028, it said.
And in Queenstown, all 23 buses would be electric by 2029.
The region would change its ticketing system for public transport next year, it said.
In her foreword, chairwoman Cr Gretchen Robertson said the significant improvements made over the past 10 years had "paid off" and there was record-breaking use of buses in both major urban centres in the region.
At this week’s council meeting, Cr Robertson nominated Cr Andrew Noone to chair the hearings panel for the plan.
She also nominated Crs Kate Wilson and Elliot Weir to join him on the hearings panel.
The vote was unanimously in favour.
Cr Robertson said public consultation would run from Monday to May 2.
