Sydney versus Melbourne - Who really has the better transport?
Sydney versus Melbourne - Who really has the better transport?
A blog about the service aspects of public transport in Melbourne, Australia.
Having used both fairly extensively, I'll go with Melbourne.
Sydney's point-to-point ticketing system sucks. The prices of tickets suck. The fact that the fastest way to get most places 1km away in the CBD is to walk, sucks.
Sydney might have better coverage to Melbourne out in the suburbs, and certainly have better busses out there. But again the ticketing shenanigans negates a lot of this. Unless you have a periodical ticket (weekly/monthly), there is no flexibility. You paid a fair to North Ryde? You're going to North Ryde. You can't change your mind. You can't decide to hop off at Woolies on the way home and get back on. Your ticket is valid for just the journey you initially paid for. Did I mention it sucks?
There's good things about Sydney. The trains and ferries are better than Melbourne's. It's just the network is so damn unfriendly and expensive to use. Yes it sucks that you can't always just buy a cash ticket on Melbourne's network. But getting set up with Myki takes no time.
It sure is nice to hop on a train to Sydney Airport, though. Pity it costs $25 or something to do it.
Didn't they change the ticketing system when they moved to Opal? They got rid of the big ticket machines that you could buy individual tickets from, in favour of a Myki-like device. You just pay for the distance rather than set intervals like what we use.
The trains themselves are a lot better. Since they're multi-level, they don't seem to get quite as packed as our ones, even during rush hour.
This is great news. It's been about 10 years since my last stint in Sydney, and Opal was "coming" or "here", I forget. The ticteting systsem hadn't changed from my several previous trips though.
Still, a daily ticket is $17.80 - which is crazy expensive. And that wouldn't cover the airport. That's another ~$17 on top of that.
So, the ticketing system has improved, but it is still incredibly expensive (as in: more than twice the price of Melbourne).
Sydney’s point-to-point ticketing system sucks. The prices of tickets suck.
Melbourne has no off-peak discount, and although the most expensive Opal trip ($16) is more expensive than the most expensive Myki trip ($10), the cheapest Opal trip is a lot cheaper. Sydney’s caps kick in faster, too. In Sydney, there’s no need to pre-purchase a “pass” as you need to with Myki – the cap just kicks in as soon as you travel enough.
The fact that the fastest way to get most places 1km away in the CBD is to walk, sucks.
That’s true of Melbourne as well. I used to commute from Flemington to the CBD daily, and walking was a more reliable way to get to work and back. Making a city more walkable is a noble goal.
Sydney might have better coverage to Melbourne out in the suburbs, and certainly have better busses out there. But again the ticketing shenanigans negates a lot of this. Unless you have a periodical ticket (weekly/monthly), there is no flexibility. You paid a fair to North Ryde? You’re going to North Ryde. You can’t change your mind. You can’t decide to hop off at Woolies on the way home and get back on. Your ticket is valid for just the journey you initially paid for. Did I mention it sucks?
You obviously haven’t actually been in Sydney for over a decade.
It sure is nice to hop on a train to Sydney Airport, though. Pity it costs $25 or something to do it.
What? It’s under $20 for a trip from the airport to the city. There’s also a weekly cap on the surcharge that kicks in really quickly, so if you need to go to the airport more than once in a week, you’re effectively paying regular train fares after the first day.
Going to the airport in Melbourne with a two hour Myki fare plus SkyBus is substantially more expensive than using the airport train in Sydney, and there’s no fare cap on SkyBus for people who need to travel to the airport multiple times in a week.
As someone with apartments in both cities, these constant, “Sydney sucks,” rants full of misinformation really don’t paint a good picture of Melbourne.
Melbourne has no off-peak discount
If you tag off by 7:15am, train journeys are free.
the cheapest Opal trip is a lot cheaper.
About the only time I needed a very short trip was zipping around the CBD on a tram. And such a trip is free. For the record, it's also much faster than walking, plus the trams are frequent and on almost every main street in the grid.
You obviously haven’t actually been in Sydney for over a decade.
I'm glad this particular problem has been fixed. It was a stupid policy.
It’s under $20 for a trip from the airport to the city. There’s also a weekly cap on the surcharge that kicks in really quickly, so if you need to go to the airport more than once in a week, you’re effectively paying regular train fares after the first day.
It's $16.80 plus whatever your fare is. If you've already paid $17 to use the network for the day, this is a pretty hefty hike on top of that charge. As for going to the airport more than once a week, I'm not sure how common that is. Most people only go there once.
No argument on the SkyBus thing. That service is an embarrassment to a city the size of Melbourne.
As an aside, I'm actually in Perth. Our trains hold their own with either city, though we lack the network coverage of Melbourne or Sydney. Our present government is working to address this, though.
Our tickets kick both your arses. You can buy a cash ticket anywhere here as a tourist, the max you'll pay is $5 for the day. Including the trains to/from the airport. It's $4 daily cap if you have a SmartRider. If you are only going on a one-way trip, it's something like $3. Transport in the CBD is free, Melbourne stole that idea off us.
Hong Kong hands down. No other country or city can touch its public transport.
Nah, Tokyo has better public transport than HK. There’s JR East, plus the subways, plus the buses. It’s really good.
Being able to use the public transport cards a s a general payment card is a brilliant idea, and it's a shame that no-one else seems to have implemented it.
You can use Suica/Pasmo to pay for things from vending machines and some convenience stores in Tokyo. Hong Kong isn’t the only place where you can use public transport cards for payment.
building beautifully just did a video on this the other day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSOnKtQa-j8
oops as a response heres the pro-melbourne version