Bring Back the Buses Campaign released the statement below on April 30.
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Epping bus campaigner Helen Said confronted Dysons Bus Company Metropolitan Services Company Manager Greg Deacon today accusing Dysons of putting Melbourne’s northern suburbs school children at risk when it introduced sweeping changes to local bus services on April 22.
“Two families had told me they received worried calls from their children on Monday 23rd April, the day after the changes took effect,” she said. “Their children didn’t know the bus services had been cancelled and they had no way of getting home from school.
“I rang Public Transport Victoria in the lead up to the bus changes warning them there were no brochures on most buses and no signs at the bus stops. But Metro North Regional Bus Officer Alan Ripper passed the buck onto PTV Public Relations and they haven’t responded to my complaint.
“So I paid a visit to Dysons Bus Company’s plush headquarters in McKimmies Road Bundoora and spoke to Mr Deacon. I told him that the service changes had hurt school children and people with disabilities and that he could expect to receive numerous complaints from passengers. His responses were non-committal and he too intends to pass our complaints on to someone else.”
Said described Dyson’s huge glass walled office complex and water wall feature as “a misuse of passengers’ fares and workers’ taxes.”
“The money would be better spent on providing bus shelters for the comfort and convenience of elderly passengers.
“And if Dysons management want to see a wall of water, they can walk an extra 300 metres to a bus stop in the pouring rain in the middle of winter, along with passengers from Mill Park Drive, Mt Cooper Drive and Westfields Shopping Complex, who are being disadvantaged by Dysons bus service changes.”
A rally will take place at 3pm on May 12 in Mill Park Drive behind Mill Park Primary School to call for action to restore local bus services in Melbourne’s northern suburbs.
