FAIR GO FOR A FARE DEAL

PUBLIC transport has to deliver a fast and efficient people-mover service.

It can’t be a revenue gouger prone to delays and breakdowns – but that is the perception that plagues the system across southeast Queensland. Commuters evidently like our Gold Coast trams, but are not happy with bus and train services.

The Bulletin reported yesterday that major roads to key Commonwealth Games venues are in gridlock months before the starter’s pistol to the city’s biggest event. The woeful inadequacies of the M1 dominated debate in the election campaign.

How commuters and visitors will cope come Games time keeps city officials and Games organisers awake at night. It certainly worries workers who will have to battle through crowded streets in April, and no doubt will be of anxious concern for Commonwealth Games and Tourism Industry Development Minister Kate Jones and her Gold Coast understudy, the newly elected Labor MP in Gaven, Meaghan Scanlon.

Public transport will play a huge role in getting spectators to events, but our problems are long term. The city will need a change in mindset to avoid nightmare traffic snarls. If state and federal governments are serious about convincing us to take a tram, train or bus instead of cars, they will heavily subsidise fares to the point where travelling is free for schoolkids and pensioners, and so cheap for adults – let’s say $1 per zone or even less – that motorists will want to leave their vehicles at home.

For years the irony of the push for commuters to use public transport has been the fare gouging that went on while politicians were telling us to “take a train instead’’. People have long memories and haven’t forgotten the five consecutive fare hikes in five years until 2014, with three of them at 15 per cent. Both sides of politics were culpable.

It should be acknowledged improvements have been made in fare prices but apart from trams, commuters are highly sceptical. “Rail fail’’ has become part of the local lexicon, and for good reason.