Murray Shire takes the wheel on public transport

“The Shire received significant feedback from the community seeking additional transport options throughout the Shire through both the Community Bus Survey conducted this year and the Murray 2025 Strategic Community Plan Survey undertaken in 2015,” Shire president Maree Reid said.

In an attempt to address the concerns, the Shire approved to allocate $60,000 from the 2016-2017 budget towards the nine-month trial, that will take off in October. 

There are currently no public transport services linking Dwellingup, Coolup and North Dandalup with main centres Mandurah and Pinjarra, and bus services between Mandurah and Pinjarra are interrupted on weekends.

“The service will allow residents living in the outlying townsites of Murray to commute to the main hubs of Pinjarra and Mandurah, as well as Perth, via the train service, to do their shopping, banking, bill paying and access to health and social services,” Ms Reid said.

The new community shuttle bus will link with the existing Transperth services and will provide two services throughout the week and one on the weekend to residents that currently have no public transport options.

Transperth spokesman David Hynes said the area’s population density was too low to establish more services.

“The towns you mention are rural and are outside the Perth Public Transport Area, where the population and housing density is not currently high enough to operate a commuter bus service, particularly at weekends,” he said.

“Transperth has a finite budget, and a responsibility to allocate taxpayer resources in a way which assists as many members of the community as possible.”

The Shire will proceed with the nine month trial in October and will evaluate the uptake of the service six months down the track.