Perth Voice Interactive

A COUNCIL-sponsored community bus is on the cards to deal with a “problematic and grossly inadequate” public transport network.

Vincent city council staff say there’s a “poor connecting transport network in the city, in particular the east-west connections”.

The situation wasn’t helped when Transperth nixed the 401 route saying it was underused (the council says it was underused because the bus only comes every hour, meaning few bothered to use it).

Curtin uni transport expert Shahed Khan has looked over Vincent’s cruddy transport network and found it takes 40 minutes to travel a very janky public transport route from the west of the city to the east, a distance of less than 4km as the crow flies.

He found 94 per cent of locals surveyed supported the community bus plan and said they wouldn’t mind a small fare of between 50c and $2.

Dr Khan says businesses could support the bus with advertisements and in turn the bus would bring more shoppers to their door.

The total cost to run it for three years could be anywhere from $2600 to $300,000 depending on how much they make back from advertisements and fares.

by DAVID BELL