Thursday, 16 September 2021
Members statements
Bus route 402
Bus route 402
Right now, with the pandemic and ongoing restrictions, public transport in Melbourne has become a lot quieter.
But we know this won’t always be the case. Now is the perfect time to identify and fix the gaps in our public transport network so that once we are vaccinated and Melbourne opens up everyone can get where they need to go.
One of the big public transport gaps in my electorate of Melbourne is getting from east to west or west to east across the inner city.
At the moment, the 402 bus helps to fill this gap.
The 402 bus goes from Footscray, through Kensington, North Melbourne, Parkville, and Carlton and terminates at St Vincent’s Hospital. It’s one of the busiest bus routes in the city, especially used to access the hospitals, university and entertainment areas like Lygon Street.
But unfortunately, the 402 bus still stops relatively early in the evening, around 9.30 pm even on Friday and Saturday nights.
That’s why I’m advocating to the state government to add additional services every 30 minutes until midnight on weekdays.
I’m also calling for additional services to run the bus all through the night on Friday and Saturday nights and for the route to be extended into East Melbourne or Richmond to enable better access east–west across the inner city.
While buses are often considered the poor cousin of trams and trains, they play a vital role in helping us move around Melbourne. It’s been great to see recent improvements to the bus network, like more 505 services to Parkville Gardens, which the member for Brunswick and I advocated for.
Now I look forward to working with the government to improve the service provided by the 402 bus.