By Kirra Livingstone
A VISION for a community-run 12-seater electric bus is a step closer following a community meeting in Maleny last week.
Convenor of the Maleny Community e-Bus Working Group, Andrew McLean, said the concept was a logical answer to the town’s parking woes while reducing traffic on busy Maple Street.
“The vision is an electric 12-seater bus that can run through and around Maleny and pick up passengers and deliver them along Maple Street maybe twice a day,” he said.
“It’s just an idea but I can’t think of any other way of having less traffic on Maple Street. It takes 12 cars off the road.”
The bus being considered is a Joylong electric bus, which would cost about $125,000 to purchase. Importantly it only costs about 5 cents per kilometre to run.
Mr McLean said the next step was organising a working group, bringing volunteers together and raising funds.
“What we need are volunteers, sponsoring organisations and we need funds,” Andrew said.
“We need to fundraise. We need a team that will physically walk down the street and ask businesses for dollars.”
A meeting, held by Maleny Forums at Maleny Community Centre last Tuesday explored many of the issues that needed to be addressed.
Mr McLean said they had sponsorship opportunities available including a $65,000 platinum sponsorship.
“Five gold sponsors by $5000, silver sponsor – 10 at $2000, 10 bronze sponsors at $500, and personal donations at $10,000, that all gives you $125,000.”
IGA Seasons Maleny has pledged to match dollar-for-dollar any funds raised.
“That’s a really amazing thing by IGA… it makes it really do-able.”
“We would love to find enough sponsorship in town to provide free transport,” Andrew added.
Community questions included who would volunteer to drive it and the number of bus runs per day. A survey was also considered necessary to find out the wider community interest in a service.