By XAVIER SMERDON
THE State Government has claimed that the West’s newest train station has done its job of taking cars off Wyndham’s roads.
According to the Minister for Public Transport, Terry Mulder, more than 2,000 residents a day have been using Williams Landing Station and new local bus routes in the first six months of operation.
Mr Mulder said the success of the new station and bus network showed the Victorian Government’s desire to meet the transport needs of major growth areas.
“More than 2,000 people are using the new station each day as well as the surrounding transport infrastructure, with PTV data showing over 80 per cent of customers are satisfied with the service,” Mr Mulder said.
“The new infrastructure has led to around 200 new train customers now choosing public transport as their mode of travel.”
Member for Western Metropolitan Region, Bernie Finn, said around two thirds of these people formerly used their cars.
“This shows we’re reducing the number of cars travelling to the city each day,” Mr Finn said.
Member for Western Metropolitan Region Andrew Elsbury said it was great to see that approximately 3,370 people were using the new Point Cook bus network each weekday, an increase of almost 80 per cent, while weekend travel had increased by around 50 per cent.
“The number of train customers travelling to the new station by bus is three times higher than bus access across the rest of the train network, demonstrating that people are using the new bus services” Mr Elsbury said.
“To improve bus operations and better service the local community, we have made a number of minor timetables changes from 27 January, and PTV will continue to evaluate and review the new bus network in 2014,” Mr Mulder said.
