Free Public Transport

[NigelWaring]

Public transport might be a matter of education. I prefer it because I can sit and read or whatever I want to do but now that I'm retired I don't have to travel at peak hour. Last year we visited Akureyri in Iceland, they have a totally free very good bus service for everyone. The buses are fairly recent models, comfortable, frequent and fairly quiet. The authorities have done the right thing and couldn't be expected to do more. The only problem is that they do not have any passengers. In the two days that we were there we saw many buses but not one of them had a passenger because only losers use public transport.

[Cozza]

It is quite the opposite in Perth, most of the trains and buses are full.

One of the best things that the council did was introduce the CAT (Central Area Transit) Buses, free to use that ran on a set route around the city. They became so popular that both Fremantle (south of Perth) and Joondalup (North of Perth) introduced a CAT into their city as well.

[NigelWaring]

We have had something similar in Sydney, it ran for a time then they stopped it, recently it was re-introduced but the route doesn't go to many useful places.

The best free service that I've come across is in Melbourne, covers all the tourist spots in comfort. There is also a tram for the inner city area.

Someday they will have to be brutal and control the number of vehicle entering the Sydney CBD, the authorities really do not have much choice on this. We do not want to end up like Kansas which seems to be the most pedestrian and cyclist unfriendly city in the world nor to we want to go to the other extreme like Amsterdam with too many aggressive cyclists.