Why do people say that new zealand is a 3rd world country when it comes to public transportation ?

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Princesspea

There are all sorts of reasons.

I suspect a big reason for the lack of a true public transport system throughout the country, and integrated metro system in the cities is simply because the population density and therefore means to pay for it simply do not exist in the current form.

I would like to say that more effort will be put into public transportation in the future but i suspect the poli's will take the easy way out and endorse the use of hybrid/biofuel/alternative use vehicles before overhauling the actual public transport system.

I should actually mention though that in many slightly larger towns there are public transport systems (mainly buses) but compared to the use of a car/private vehicle they just don't measure up.

Personally, i get a commuter train and then transfer to a bus each day to get to work. I then do it in the evening when I go home. There are ALWAYS lots of people on my trains - i will never get a seat and I often am squished in. I live in Wellington and yes, more people do use public transport here than in other places. Now the problem is that I live on a pretty 'direct' route and I work normal business hours. Apart from the transferring to bus (just about any bus will drop me off) it is relatively painless for me. But for people who live where I do (10 mins from City) but have to get to work, say, earlier in the morning or transfer to a bus to get across town, then a private vehicle will always win out.

That is just a long winded way of saying that yes we do have public transport, it is not fantastic but in the cities at least it is usuable but outside of certain times it will not beat out on car use. Either the Government could take it on and potentially cover it as a loss maker until petrol becomes prohibitively expensive (heck, it is near that now) or there simply needs to be a major overhaul of services. Population density and the potential user of the public transportation is problematic too.

JiggyJ

The public transportation system in NZ is slow, very rarely on time and there is very little of it. You may be lucky to have one bus a day running between small centres and at best two buses a day between major centres. In cities there are so called regular services that are frequently late or early, so catching one is a matter of luck. Smaller centres are lucky to have any service at all. Welcome to the third world. Luckily we are mainly a driving nation anyway. After all there isn't that much land to travel on.

karameakiwi

Public transport, what public transport?

Government do something about it? Hahahahahahaha. No.

Belle C

I live in Wellington and Ive gotta say...our public transport is pretty good!

N L

Depends where you live. Wellington has a pretty good public transport system. Most public transport systems in the developed world are privately run and developed. Probably given the numbers (4 million people in the entire country) it is not cost effective to build a system that will have to run for decades before it pays for its self. The government could pay for it, but then all those people waiting for operations might whinge when the money earmarked for the health sector is spent on Auckland's transport system.

Unfortunately the tax payer dollar only goes so far and public transport is quite low on the list of priorities.

I have to laugh at the person who says Zimbabwe's transport system is better than New Zealands. Hello they have no fuel, not much use having a bus if it can't go anywhere.

Lindajanice

We all ride sheep.

emilylikesveges

Yeah I live in Auckland and the public transport system is pretty good here.

zee_prime

Well, I live in NZ and in my humble opinion, public transport here is worse than in many third world countries. I've lived in several third world countries. In the Seychelles, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe public transport is much better than here in Godzone. OK part of the problem is our low population density and geography; we're a long thin country. But both our main political parties are into dog-eat-dog capitalism and don't really give a stuff about ordinary working people. There's more money for the rich in building motorways and selling cars than in buses and rail transport.

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