Tony P wrote:

> You're contradicting what David McL told us here a week ago. We're only impartial observers from the other side of the sea happy to accept the facts if somebody gives them to us correctly! I don't have any political position, I'm completely apolitical.

As am I. I simply state as fact that many regional council members are Labour and Green (though some stand as independents). The virulently anti-trolley regional council chair is a former Labour MP (Fran Wilde), as is the anti-trolley transport portfolio chair (Paul Swain) and another non-supporter of trolleys (Chris Laidlaw). The mayor of Wellington Celia Wade-Brown is a Green and also supports the removal of trolley buses. She lives in a fantasy world where some yet-to-be invented electric bus will replace them in just three years time! Some Green members of the regional council (GWRC) may support trolleys but they are a minority.

These are just facts. I could go through the whole regional council if you like but I don't believe politics is involved. The regional council staff are behind this and want to get rid of the trolleys and the monopoly bus company (NZ Bus). They plan to buy more than 200 articulated diesel buses which will replace all the buses trolley and diesel owned by NZ Bus and get other contractors in to operate the GWRC-owned buses on routes contracted on eg six routes to a contract under a new system called PTOM (public transport operating model).

cheers
david in wellington