BEEP BEEP Campaign to get bus between Torquay and Waurn Ponds Shopping Centre succeeds

A TORQUAY resident is overjoyed to learn her campaign to get a more direct bus connection between Torquay and the Waurn Ponds Shopping Centre has been successful.

As of March 31, all V/Line coach services between Geelong, Lorne and Apollo Bay will be rerouted to travel past the shopping centre in Pioneer Road, Grovedale.

The new route – which will run four times a day, seven days a week – will be the same as the existing route except that it will turn off the Surf Coast Highway at Pioneer Road (when coming from Torquay), stop at Waurn Ponds Shopping Centre, turn onto Colac Road, then return to the existing route at High Street in Belmont.

The Grovedale coach stop will be relocated to Pioneer Road, and coaches to and from Lorne and Apollo Bay will have between nine and 11 minutes of time added to their trip. Previously, the closest a traveller from Torquay could get on
public transport to the shopping centre was to catch the #51 McHarry’s bus and get off at Pioneer Road, which still left a two-kilometre walk; or at Heyers Road, where travellers faced a wait for the #40 bus.

Heidi Rozec, who heard the good news last week, said the changed route would be good for all the coastal towns along the Great Ocean Road.

“It’s not just Torquay; everyone benefits.”

She had been campaigning for more than a year for a Torquay-Waurn Ponds Shopping Centre route, arguing it would not only give Torquay’s youth something to do but also offer more employment opportunities. Her lobbying included correspondence with bus operator McHarry’s Buslines, responsible statutory authority Public Transport Victoria, and state and federal MPs – Corangamite federal member Sarah Henderson hosted a petition on her website.

Mrs Rozec said good timing played a part in the success of her campaign, as did the number of letters she received in support of the change, including from the management of Waurn Ponds Shopping Centre and Surf Coast Secondary College principal Scott Diamond.