Today Rodney residents celebrate one year since two new bus services started, helping to connect Auckland’s northern communities.
Funded by the Rodney Local Board Transport Targeted Rate, the Route 998 Wellsford to Warkworth bus service and Route 128 Helensville to Hibiscus Coast station service have been well-used over the past year.
The popular 998 service has carried more than 25,000 passengers.
The services came about when the Rodney Local Board consulted on a targeted rate to fund transport improvements in the area.
Under the targeted rate, Auckland Transport (AT) delivered Route 998 and Route 128 on 24 February 2019.
Last year, AT extended a school bus service to Hibiscus Coast Station in order to allows students to connect from the 128 to the school service.
As part of the same targeted rate, Route 126 - Westgate to Albany - commenced on 6 May 2019.
126 has also proven extremely popular with Rodney residents. For the first three months, there were just under 1,000 passengers per week on average.
Auckland Transport’s Stacey van der Putten – group manager metro services – says that it’s a sign of growth on these services that the average patronage per week in January this year (the quietest time for public transport) was 443 per week, only one less than during the annual peak demand in March last year.
“These services are all about connecting communities and making life easier for Aucklanders. We are happy they have been so well-received.”
Rodney Local Board chair Phelan Pirrie says Rodney Local Board is delighted with how successful these new services have been in such a short time.
“There has been a lot of very positive feedback from our community on how much they value these buses.”
“The Wellsford service has finally allowed residents to get back and forth to Warkworth and also access to the rest of Auckland’s public transport network.”
See more at at.govt.nz/Rodneyrate
