MX Wed 21/01/09

Naomi Bicheno

“A $200 on-the-spot fine [for fare evasion] can easily avoided by paying a few dollars for the correct fare.”

If the correct fare only cost a few dollars, 3,608 people in total would not have had so much trouble paying it last month.

I asked Kieran how much he would expect to pay if I told him something cost a few dollars, and he said $2-3. The dictionary defines “a few” as “being more than one but indefinitely small in number”.

A zone 1 daily return ticket starts from $4.80 minimum (assuming that most people who catch public transport in one direction usually want to get back home later). How is me having to find a $5 note a few dollars?

It becomes even more incorrect because the majority of commuters who use public transport on a daily basis do so because they don’t live in an inner-city suburb. A zone 1-4 return ticket costs $7.60, and now it is definitely becoming inconvenient to pay using “a few dollars” since it would require eight dollar coins which is more than double what most Australians would consider to be a few dollars. And that barely even takes you to the outer suburbs of Brisbane.

A daily ticket can go all the way up to $37.60 for zone 23 (for the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast commuters).

Does this mean that if I’m ever caught without a ticket, I can say “A TransLink spokesman informed me that I can avoid the fine by paying a few dollars,” and then hand the inspector $3 in coins?

This leads me to my second public transport complaint. If a bus turns up significantly late (say, more than 5 minutes), why should I have to pay for my journey at all? At the very least I should get a discount. I see it as a contract, I’m paying them to turn up on time so that I reach my destination on time. If they frequently can’t get me to my destination at the time that they advertised, how can they be so hypocritcal as to crack down on collecting money from me when they fail to hold up their side of the bargain to give me what I thought I was paying for.