Mike's Minute: Public transport continues to be a joke

If you ever want the perfect example of why this country is in the state it’s in, look at last week's announcement on rail. Auckland rail is largely out of commission for the next several years. A main form of public transport is up for enormous amounts of disruption. It varies from line to line. And even if you believe the timeframe around the work, which you shouldn’t, it'll be 2026 before it's all done. This doesn’t appear to be their fault, or really anyone's fault, the infrastructure is a mess and it needs work. But this comes at a time when the Government is falling over backwards, along with councils in the major centres, to promote public transport. Why are you promoting something that is in for years of disruption? And, if you know anything about rail services, they have been an unreliable mess for years anyway. We live next to a train station; the number of times it doesn’t work is astonishing. Entire days go by with not a train in sight. Queue the answer, the buses. Don't laugh. That is their answer, the buses. The buses that when the trains do run can't keep up or show up. These are the buses that are already a joke. So, you're honestly telling me that when the trains aren't working, a whole shed-load of extra buses are being magicked up from Busville to turn up and pick up the slack. At the same time this particular cluster was being announced, authorities from all over the country were making yet another plea to the Government to loosen the immigration settings to let, that's right,  bus drivers into the country. You can't get a bus driver for love, nor money. Every bus has their electronic sign on flashing "we are hiring.” So, the trains are off, the buses we don’t have, with drivers that aren't here are set to pick fill the void. While at the same time, the millions that are poured into promoting the wonders of public transport continue to be spent unabated. You can't write this stuff. And yet here we are, and will be for the next several years.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.