An Illawarra bus company boss has attacked Wollongong City Council for leaving it so late to publicise its new colour-coded bus stops plan, which starts on Monday.Council general manager David Farmer unveiled maps on Wednesday, showing locations of the new stops. Their relocations are the first step towards reopening the Keira St transit mall to traffic by June.The stops are colour-coded according to whether passengers are travelling to or from the northern suburbs, or southern-western suburbs.
Wollongong buses to change stops MondayThe start of the new system coincides with the first day of revised bus timetables and additional Gong Shuttle services.But Dion's Bus Service managing director Les Dion yesterday said the council map roll-out to the media had been poorly managed and bus operators had effectively been left out of the loop."It should have come out a couple of weeks earlier to alert people this change was coming," he said."We have known it has been in the wings but information has been very scant."The council needs to think long and hard about how they roll these things out in the future." Mr Farmer said it was announced several weeks ago that the stops were moving."It was decided that providing the details of the changes too early would have caused confusion, particularly about the operational dates," he said."The major impact relates to inner-city departures. In these cases the bus stops are moving only a couple of hundred metres from the transit mall to new stops in Keira, Crown and Burelli streets. We are targeting education at those directly affected."Bus companies Premier Illawarra and Greens Northern Coaches declined to comment on the changes and referred inquiries to the council.Mr Dion told the Mercury he was still waiting for brochures that drivers could distribute to passengers and it was the drivers who would have to deal with frustrated travellers.Mr Farmer said late yesterday the brochures were now available, maps were on the council website, and council staff would be explaining the changes to bus users on Monday.Mr Dion said the late notice was unfortunate because the new bus stops would be a significant improvement on the existing transit mall."Once people get used to it, it will work well because it will save a lot of confusion," he said.He said the new stops and priority bus lanes would ease congestion.
