From next week, trips on Auckland's Gulf Harbour ferry to the CBD will be temporarily slashed by 83%, angering some users.
It's due to Fullers360 undertaking training of new crew and upskilling existing staff as it tries to sort a shortage of qualified maritime crew and make services more reliable. It said the programme fast-tracks the pathway to become a skipper to 14 to 18 months.
With timetables reduced, Gulf Harbour ferry users will have to catch a replacement bus during peak times or three other regular Hibiscus Coast bus services which service the suburb at the end of the Whangaparāoa Peninsula. The ferry takes around 50 minutes, while driving takes around 80 minutes. By bus it can take around two hours.
At a community meeting last night, locals expressed feelings of anger, disappointment and despair at the changes.
"We understand that there's crewing delays, but what they've done now is just another slap in the face. They just keep pushing us down, pushing us down because they don't think that we're going to fight back. We will fight back because it's a public service that benefits 30,000 people, potentially," one user said.
"There's anger, there's disappointment, there's frustration. There's every emotion you can imagine around that really," another said.
"We've gone from a vibrant community to one that really feels like it's breaking."
"Disappointment and despair in the lack of transparency," another commuter said.
Auckland councillor John Watson, who has written a 15-page summary to Auckland Transport on how bad the service is, told Breakfast people have been worn down by the issue of ferry delays and cancellations, which has been ongoing for two years.
"The cancellation rate is now over 50%, so that means 50% of the time a ferry doesn't turn up. It's like a lottery down there, wondering if it's going to come and if it's not coming, will there be a bus there or a taxi? It's really decimated a once really successful service."
"The public have responded in unprecedented numbers to try and save their ferry and to be honest, they've been treated with a degree of contempt," Watson said.
Auckland Transport, in its draft Regional Public Transport Plan, proposed removing the Gulf Harbour ferry service from 2028.
It said O Mahurangi (Penlink) would be completed before then and there would be improvements to local bus services. The improved bus services would be more reliable than the ferry and cheaper, it said.
"People will be fighting it. The quality of their life depends on it," Watson said.
Half Moon Bay ferry services have also been affected by the training programme.
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