Environment Canterbury is calling on residents across Greater Christchurch to help shape the region’s public transport network for the next decade, with consultation on a major metro bus and ferry review closing on Wednesday June 24.

Nearly 10,000 submissions have already been received, but Environment Canterbury Chairperson Deon Swiggs said there was still time for more voices to be heard, particularly from people in fast-growing suburbs and satellite towns that have long gone without adequate services.

“We’ve now got parts of the city, such as Halswell, Queens Park and Prestons, right across the city, that have grown, and we’ve also got the outer parts of Greater Christchurch, Rolleston and Rangiora, that have grown quite a lot as well,” Swiggs said. “Now we need to think about how do we get public transport into those locations.”

Residents can have their say at ecan.govt.nz/metro-review before consultation closes on Wednesday June 24.

The review is the first of its kind since 2014, and Swiggs said the city had changed enormously in the intervening decade. Through annual and long-term plan consultations, residents had repeatedly asked for better bus access in their areas. This review was the opportunity to make that case formally.

“This is your chance to say, hey, look, we want a bus. This is where we want to do it,” Swiggs said.

One of the key challenges the review must navigate is the interconnected nature of the network. A change to one route can trigger a ripple effect across the entire system.

“If you change the bus route in Halswell, it affects the other side of the city up in Queens Park, because you then need to either have more buses on that route or all the timetable changes,” Swiggs said. “If you change one part, another part of the city will need to change proportionately. This is why looking at it from a whole network at once is the best way to do this.”

Swiggs said feedback from those who do not currently use public transport was just as valuable as feedback from regular users.

“You often hear people saying, ‘Oh, I don’t use the bus, it doesn’t really matter to me.’ Actually, if it did work for you, what would that mean? What is the thing that is holding you back? That is really important to understand,” Swiggs said. “Some people don’t feel safe using public transport, and there might be programmes we can design in the future that can cater for those people as well.”

For communities in Selwyn and Waimakariri districts, Swiggs said the review presented a genuine opportunity for improved services tailored to local needs.

“This absolutely gives Rolleston and Rangiora, Prebbleton, Lincoln, those opportunities to have a better or more improved service that is more in tune to what the communities of those areas want,” Swiggs said. “Do you want a service within your suburb, or do you want a transfer from Rolleston into Christchurch? Do you want to go to the central city, or do you want to go somewhere where people are working? Those are the things we are trying to tease out.”

Once consultation closes, the feedback will be analysed alongside technical data and worked through with city and district councils to ensure infrastructure can support any new routes. Swiggs said the findings would then feed into the long-term plan process, with further public engagement to follow.

“We’ll probably put it back out to the public and say, this is what we’ve heard, this is what we’re thinking, and then have an ongoing dialogue about what looks best,” Swiggs said.

Residents can have their say at ecan.govt.nz/metro-review before consultation closes on Wednesday June 24.