TWO Thomastown grandmothers are the unlikely face of a suburban protest movement.
The friends say changes in bus timetables, routes and services leave them standing in the rain outside Thomastown train station.
‘‘I am elderly and work in the city, but standing outside in the extreme temperatures waiting for a bus home (from the station) is unhealthy,’’ Nada Stanceska, 61, said.
Brigita Bauman, 59, said she used to have a choice of buses travelling along Edgars Road every 20 minutes, but now faced a wait of up to a hour.
Public Transport Victoria has introduced about a dozen timetable changes and six route changes, scrapped two services and introduced two new routes, according to Bring Back the Buses campaigner Helen Said.
‘‘These are the buses used by grandmothers to do their shopping, by young mums trying to get to the maternal health centre,’’ she said.
Thomastown MLA Bronwyn Halfpenny said although bus changes were designed to shave minutes off travel times for commuters, many passengers in the northern suburbs used buses for local travel.
Rerouting services had cut off elderly residents, while some buses now bypassed local shopping strips, hurting traders, she said.
Rerouting bus 563 cut off Bundoora’s Cooper Estate residents and people wanting to use the community house, school and maternal health centre in Mill Park Drive, said Ms Said.
Residents were concerned the buses from McDonalds Road, Epping, would be permanently rerouted because of alleged rock throwing.
A protest meeting over the loss of bus 563 will be held at the community hall in Mill Park Drive, Mill Park, at 2.30pm on August 17.
