Thread: Cost of public transport - UNREASONABLE!

Originally Posted by Treads

Seniors price?

Yep. Prior to that it was free (I worked for the railways).

Originally Posted by p38arover

I forgot to mention, in Sydney, an all day, unlimited travel pass on State govt buses, ferries, and trains costs me $2.50.

I hadn't used public transport in Sydney for years until early this year and was stunned at the exorbitant price increase, from $1 then to $2.50 for all day travel.

There were a few of those forward control semi-trailer buses about in the post-war period up to about 1958. Most were purpose built White prime movers that had a substantial flat 12 underfloor petrol engine of prodigious thirst.

The last one I remember seeing in use was on Brisbane-Tweed Heads service in the late fifties. It was parked up later for quite some time in the lines' storage yard at Coolangatta near the railway station. It was popular with young people for free accomodation. First in at night got the back bench to sleep on.

Diana & JD, have a look at Wikipedia "Trams in Sydney". Lists all the lines and the years they were used.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Do you have a reference for this? It certainly must have been before my time, and I think it is wrong. From my experience, and talking to my parents, there were never trams in Parramatta Rd west of City Rd (where they were still running when I was at University), and there were never any trams in Victoria Rd.

The only trams that ever operated in the Parramatta area (and I am certain of this because this is where I grew up) were a line along George St from Parramatta wharf to the park gates (closed in 1940, I think) and the line that ran up Church St and along Windsor Rd to Baulkham Hills, then Castle Hill, from the early 1900s until the 1920s when it was converted to heavy rail from Westmead extended to Rogan's hill and closed in the early thirties as traffic increased. Both these lines used the steam trams that were surplus after Sydney changed its trams to electric ones.

John

John

You have my apologies for many errors in my earlier posts. I took second hand information from Black Bill that Sydney had the largest network in the world as fact, when a quick check of even such a poor resource as Wikipedia suggests it was merely the second largest in the British Commonwealth after London and "one of the largest in the world".

As for the extent of the system, I made assumptions. I took knowns about tramway locations and facilities and made connections where there were none. Parramatta Road is a classic example, yes we know that the trams ran along Broadway, past City Road along Parramatta Road and onto Norton Street Leichhardt and Rozelle and terminated at East Balmain. Branches turned down past Harold Park racetrack on what was a dedicated tramway but is now Monogue Cres and ended up at Ryde and another branch used Marion street and Great North Road to Abbotsford.

Knowing that trams ran between Ashfield and Cabarita/Mortlake via Burwood, I assumed the current bus depot on Parramatta Road was previously a tram shed like many other current and abandoned bus depots (Leichhardt, Randwick, Bondi Junction, Newtown, Rozelle and Tempe) and in my mind joined up the isolated tramway segments between Leichhardt to Burwood and Burwood to Tramway Ave/George St Parramatta via Clyde and Camelia on what is now the heavy rail to Carlingford.

Again my apologies for not checking my information and also for believing supposed experts. I have attempted to amend the previous posts but the 24 hours is up on the earliest one.

Diana

Melbourne's rail has it's underground city circle which then radiates outward with some lines continuing into and out of the state.

A gentleman who was a train driver related to me one day how the original concept for Melbourne transport involved the radial lines, and there was a plan to then build and run light rail connecting across between the radial lines. Never happened.

Why? Post WW2, with the state government trying to 'woo' the car industry, which they did, the weight of investment was made towards roads and express-ways. Imagine what could have been?

Originally Posted by BBC

Melbourne's rail has it's underground city circle which then radiates outward with some lines continuing into and out of the state.

A gentleman who was a train driver related to me one day how the original concept for Melbourne transport involved the radial lines, and there was a plan to then build and run light rail connecting across between the radial lines. Never happened.

Why? Post WW2, with the state government trying to 'woo' the car industry, which they did, the weight of investment was made towards roads and express-ways. Imagine what could have been?

Melbourne's city circle long postdates the radial structure of the railways. There were two planned loops further out, which were never completed, and were partly dismantled after they had served their purpose of enriching land speculators, but were hopelessly unfinancial.

While the government certainly wooed the car makers, this had nothing to dio with the emphasis on motor transport - this was simply what the voters wanted, partly because many of them lived in new suburbs that had no rail or tram links - because voters did not want the taxes needed to provide them if they were to be built as well as the roads, and certainly as far as voters were concerned, roads came first. Plus, as the city grew, the radial structure of the city's public transport links suited fewer and fewer of the commuters, more and more of whom needed to go from suburb to suburb, not suburb to city. Despite this Melbourne has been a leader in Australia in public transport use, at least since the 1890s. (I lived in Melbourne for 22 years).

John

Well put John. Just wish that WE, the people, could better recognize that cities should be for people, not the cars that we believe we must use so much...anyway.

Utterly detest how Brisbane is becoming. I lived there in the 80's. The congestion they now have, is only going to get worse.

Brisbane, the world's biggest suburb.