Bus commuters face delays during the busiest month of Auckland's traffic calendar from a series of rolling strikes by bus drivers starting tomorrow.

Brian from New Lynn

NZ Bus said the disruption means some bus commuters will be unable to take their normal bus to work in the morning. About 250 bus drivers will strike at the Glenfield and Swanson NZ Bus depots from 4am to 7am to attend a stop work meeting after contract negotiations broke down last week. Similar strikes are set to take place on Wednesday and Thursday at other NZ Bus depots due to stopwork meetings, all affecting morning peak bus services. NZ Bus CEO Barry Hinkley said the disruption will extend beyond 7am when drivers start arriving at the depots and it will take some time to begin their normal route. "This will mean that some peak-hour customers will unfortunately be unable to take their normal buses to work," Hinkley said. A total of 37 bus services are affected by tomorrow's strikes during March Madness - the busiest month of Auckland's traffic calendar. Auckland Transport said the strike action will result in the cancellation of 139 buses that would depart before 7.30am. No school buses are affected. Tramways Union president Gary Froggatt said about 800 bus drivers would vote over the new few days at stopwork meetings on whether to take further strike action in a dispute with NZ Bus over pay and conditions. He said NZ Bus had offered 68 cents to take hourly pay rate to $22.75. The Tramways Union and First Union were seeking a further 25c to take the hourly rate to $23, he said. The union is also seeking changes to 14-hour shifts broken up by several hours on unpaid leave. Hinkley said NZ Bus made an offer to increase drivers' hourly rates up to $24 by January 2022 - an increase of over 8 per cent on top of hourly rates that are already the highest in Auckland. First Union and the Tramways Union rejected the offer and have proposed this strike action, he said. "We want normal service to resume as quickly as possible and we want our staff to be happy working for NZ Bus. We hope that this impasse will be resolved soon through further negotiation," Hinkley said March Madness got of to a trouble-free start this morning with nothing out of the ordinary on the city's roads and public transport. An Auckland Transport spokesman said the closure of the Wellesley St/Albert St intersection had not caused any major problems. "We did notice that some drivers had forgotten about the change and were using Federal St but we're sure they will now alter their route," he said. There were some minor delays on Victoria St between Hobson St and Queen St from drivers seemingly using this as an alternative to the intersection, the spokesman said. The Herald caught the 101 University bus from Ponsonby to Auckland University this morning. Traffic was light and the journey was a breeze, taking 15 minutes. One commuter, Edward Swift, experienced a 15-minute delay getting down Greenlane and onto the motorway at 7.45am, saying it was the longest delay ever on his daily commute into the central city. He recorded a time lapse of his journey, saying just one or two cars were getting through the traffic lights but once he was on them motorway it was plain sailing into the city. Today officially marks the first day of the semester for 2020, and it comes the day after construction on the City Rail Link (CRL) closed the major city intersection of Wellesley St West and Albert St. This intersection closure is nothing new for Aucklanders in 2020, who are in the thick of 63 separate road work disruptions to CBD streets this year.
Wellesley St West, in particular, acts as the dividing border between Auckland University and AUT University in the city, and the 30 bus routes travelling the east-west route have been diverted around several CBD blocks. The works are for Aotea Station - one of three new stations for the City Rail Link (CRL), along with Karangahape and Mt Eden stations. Access to Mayoral Drive at the intersection will remain closed for five years until CRL is completed in 2024. But Wellesley St West will reopen to through traffic on March 1, 2021. The first of Auckland's four scheduled new trains from Spain are due to be rolled out next week, and some extra train cars will be added to the existing fleet, adding 1200 more seats at peak times. For details of affected bus services go to:
at.govt.nz...
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