We had friends over on Saturday night, and were talking about public transport in #Melbourne, commenting that at $5.50 per adult, and with the frequency that most lines run, it can be hard to justify using it. Under the circumstances, for a group of people, it’s usually both cheaper and more convenient to drive into the city and park.
On Sunday my family of 4 took the tram to the Australian Open. This would have cost us $16.50 each way. On the way there Sunday morning, we had good luck on connections and made the trip in 40 minutes. On the return trip we missed a tram at our transfer point by seconds. The next one, on schedule, would come in 28 minutes. Because of the special event, we had ridden for free up to this point. It was 8:30pm, and in the end a $12 Uber got us home 40 minutes sooner than waiting for the tram would have, and it was cheaper.
It was Sunday night. I get that you probably can’t have trams every 5 minutes all day. But 28 minute intervals, on a line which only runs 5km from downtown through dense inner suburbs to its terminus, seems a bit much. The only concession you get here is that on weekends the max daily fare is 1.5x full fares.
I wonder what it would cost to offer $1 fares and max frequency of 15 minutes? I think that’s a world that a lot of people would like to live in.
