The CAT Bus Challenge – Time for Local Member to go into bat for Freo

I am here to advocate for keeping the CAT Bus, as no alternative is in sight, yet.

I am here to speak for the businesses, disabled, elderly, locals, students and tourists, to ask that we don’t have a gap in public transport, if the Council cut the CAT.

Plans are needed for the community members who are reliant on public transport for their every-day amenities. Tourists can’t walk to all our marketed destinations. Locals would rather hop on a CAT than use their cars and pay parking. The South Beach businesses don’t want to be cut off.

Public transport should not be removed from our city’s budget. Our population will increase, and our tourism will grow, so will our cars. Cutting public transport is looking backwards, not forwards.

Council stated prospective CAT Bus funding bodies would be approached last year in March 2022.

South of South Street is devoid of buses to South Fremantle, as the 532 is once per hour off-peak, weekends and public holidays, and comes from Cockburn.

Recent local reports are stating two hour waits between the 532 buses. This will not cover our community and tourist needs.

If the CAT is cut, we will lose any service, until an alternative is put in place. This could take months or years. Surely, we can negotiate with the Port, the PTA, Notre Dame, our local member, and our current/and or future Ministers for Transport and Tourism?

We were told at the (recent) Politics in the Pub meeting, if we find another, equal, one-third partner, besides the Council and the PTA, we would be set. We could keep the CAT.

The Keep the CAT group had a meeting with Simone McGurk’s office last week, and they said they hadn’t heard about CAT Bus funding needs until it came up in Council recently. No one has approached them for funding.

The Keep the CAT group will also be attending the first CEO Reference Group this Thursday.
 
Even now, two weeks into a three-month funding reprieve from the Freo City Council, there is a very real chance that all CAT services will be gone, by the end of September.

Will the three months be enough time to do the job? A solution needs to be found, prior to the October local elections, as the City Council goes into caretaker mode.

As both the Fremantle Council, and the State Government, are currently saying, it is the other group’s problem.

Our community needs bus coverage.

A positive resolution will come if the funding groups talk, and hopefully a new funding model is decided.