Round the Bays participants advised to plan ahead for weekend bus replacements

Participants in Sunday’s Round the Bays are advised to plan ahead for buses to replace trains on all lines this weekend, including on event day.    

Passenger services on the Hutt Valley, Kāpiti, Johnsonville and Wairarapa Lines will be bus replaced from 6am on Saturday 17 February with some trains resuming from Sunday evening.      

KiwiRail advised Metlink that the closures are necessary for pre-planned maintenance and further inspections of overhead power cables following last month’s incident which suspended trains in and out of Wellington Station.

Greater Wellington transport chair Thomas Nash says the timing of these works is extremely unfortunate, but some rail closures are going to be inevitable given the scale of renewals required.

“Metlink will be providing additional buses to replace trains but not having rail services will be disappointing for people coming in for the Round the Bays, which is a massive annual event for the region,” Cr Nash says.

“Metlink, Transdev and KiwiRail are in the unenviable position of having to balance the extremely pressing need for renewals and maintenance on our aging rail network against keeping services running for significant events like Round the Bays.

“How we continue to work together to make these decisions, as well as being clear and transparent with the public, will be a major point of discussion at Greater Wellington’s Transport Committee.

“I’ve asked Metlink to report to the committee on what we can do to improve services around major events, and on the cost of providing unimpeded, peak level connections for events that meet a certain threshold, such as All Blacks tests and concerts at Sky Stadium,” Cr Nash says.

On the day of Round the Bays, Metlink bus services will be running to a Sunday timetable as normal, however passengers are advised that buses will be busy, and routes may experience delays around Wellington city and in Kilbirnie due to traffic congestion.

Normal fares will apply for Round the Bays participants and several routes which travel through Kilbirnie will follow detours.

For more information on bus replacements and to plan your journey, please visit the Metlink website: Buses replacing trains » Metlink(external link)

For more information on Round the Bays, including the shuttle service being run by Round the Bays, please visit Fun Run/Walk | Wellington Round the Bays(external link).