Plan for tourists to ride buses to beach, shops Towns’ ticket to ride

Jessica Benton
Special buses could ferry tourists to beaches and shops under a plan to break parking nightmares at Ocean Grove and Barwon Heads.
Barwon Coast Committee of Management wants to run the park-and-ride system over summer.
Committee boss Bob Jordan said the service would operate from a temporary parking lot.
The service would also be available to residents tired of trying to find elusive vacant parking spaces, he said.
The committee had yet to identify a site for the parking lot but Mr Jordan nominated school car parks vacant over summer and parkland near Ocean Grove’s industrial estate as potential hosts.
He said the committee had a “strong belief” in the value of a park-and-ride system for both towns.
“We’ve been in ongoing discussions with council and everybody is very supportive,” Mr Jordan said.
However, he was unsure when the committee might be ready to run the service.
“It’s a project that’s not going to happen overnight,” he said.
Bellarine Tourism chairman Peter Kenny believed a park-and-ride system had plenty of potential for alleviating the towns’ parking problems for both tourists and residents.
“Parking is becoming a bit of a premium on the foreshore,” he said.
“If you’ve got a park-and-ride system that works then I don’t see how it couldn’t be a good thing.
“Anything that makes a tourists’ life easier to get around is favourable.”
A park-and-ride system operates in Geelong, ferrying city workers to jobs from Eastern Park and Belmont.
The system has sparked interest in the Surf Coast where visitors and residents have similar problems finding parks over summer.
A Torquay community association spokesperson called for Surf Coast Shire to investigate introducing a park-and-ride service at Torquay.
City of Greater Geelong has provided a $2000 grant for an existing free summer shuttle bus between Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove.
Mr Jordan said the committee would use the money to maintain the bus service.
Mr Jordan said the bus cost about $20,000 to run a year, including hire and bus drivers.