I had a Sunday gig at the Australian Film Institute’s AACTA Festival down at Surfers Paradise and decided I’d try the train rather than driving there and back. The train to the coast doesn’t really go to the coast. You don’t finish up at the beach but in the hinterland. Nerang in my case.
But thanks to the last election, the fare was only fifty cents, and there’s no road congestion to deal with so… I gave it a go.
It was… pretty good.
Especially for fifty cents. Petrol there and back would have cost me about $50, and there’s a good chance I’d have sat in a traffic jam for over an hour. The train was unsurprisingly busy, mostly with kids and bogans heading to the beach.
Fair enough. I put my AirPods in and listened to my old man podcasts.
The Festival was cool. Film people are very different from book people, but I don’t mind that. I wandered into the wrong theatre for my gig, crashing the make up and costuming panel by accident. But they were cool and let me take a pic.
Turned out my cheap beach trip was also the six-month anniversary of 50-cent fares. The ABC had an interesting piece about the effects, which have been significant. Lots more people moving around on the weekend, especially going to and from the coast and up and down the river.
One figure that popped out - if you were a commuter travelling between Brisbane and the coast you’d have saved about three and a half grand over the last six months.