Just making public transport free without increasing funding for it will only turn it into a soup-kitchen service that only those with no other options will use. The well-heeled bourgeoisie will stay in their cars; they have podcasts to listen to and cruise control to crawl through traffic jams for them, and anybody who regards strangers’ body heat and odours as anything other than a celebration of common humanity will avoid it as much as they can. If they can’t, then once fuel prices drop, they’re out of there and not going back, instead talking about the dark days of packed trains in the way that refugees talk about regimes they fled.
Typical of Channel 9 to frame this as a bad thing. Yes, they should get more trains and drivers to meet the demand but running at full capacity, especially given the alternative, is not a bad thing.
The only bad thing is the state government not rapidly increasing train frequencies for off-peak, when we have the rolling stock to do so (and also removing the VLine booking system, like, that is really stupid).
Whether we have enough drivers, I dunno
More trains. More. Yes.
It’s almost…and correct if I’m wrong that if you provide a service at a reasonable price (typically) people will use it. Call me surprised.
I took this photo after standing on the platform for 45 minutes and just before shoving some people harder than I’ve ever shoved in my life.
The stationmaster was screaming at people to get off the train and said everyone is just thinking about themselves (and was right to do so). The passive aggressive announcements from the driver after the train set off were wild.
