RateCityRail

Dear RCR Readers,

Welcome to 2009. I’m finally back from leave and back on the trains again this week. It’s certainly shaping up to be an interesting year on the trains. Fares to rise, Cityrail changing the timetable and Cityrail endorsing trains to travel at “crush” capacity more frequently to support the new timetables.

This “crush” situation I’ll discuss in another post, but it does pose some interesting questions.

My experience on the trains this week since I’ve been back has been mixed. All the trains have been ontime, but I’m really struggling with the heat & humidity of the trains and underground stations.

Town Hall this week has just been unbareable(for someone who wears business shirt, tie & pants & considers themselves reasonably fit). You hop off either a nice cold train, or boiling hot one and just melt straight away.

Trains with A/C, or working A/C have been a little hard to get, but we’ll just have to see what the rest of summer has to say about that.

Later this week I’ll do some coverage on the overcrowding Cityrail is volunteering all commuters for in peak.

Can’t wait!

RCR

Well it was bound to happen.

As mentioned in my earlier post to about IPART and making sure you got your submission in the NSW Government has managed to wrangle some increases in our fares over the next four years, details below.

I’m in two minds on this one, personally being a commuter every day I don’t want to see the fares increase, it’s more money out of my hip pocket, and at the moment more money seems to be leaving my pocket than entering it, and job security certainly isn’t what it used to be.

We all know the appauling state of some of the trains on the network, they really, really need to be replaced, do these fare increases go towards improving the infrastructure? If so, is it worth it?

Sould we, the people be paying for this? Is it a “right” as a resident of Sydney to have access to cheap and reliable public transport? Should the Government be covering these rises in fares instead of the commuters?

For all those questions I find it hard to give a definative answer. The trains need to be fixed, but our State Government is currently $1 Billion in debt. where else is the money going to come from?

I have a bitter taste in my mouth about this increase, and will probably curse buying my 14 day rail pass every week at the start of 2009, I suppose like all things, prices only go up not down, and what can we do about it?

CITYRAIL
2009
Distance: Up to 20 kilometres
Single tickets: 20c to 60c increase
Weeklies: $1 to $3 increase
 
Distance: 20 kilometres to 65 kilometres
Single tickets: 40c increase
Weeklies: $2 to $3 increase
 
Distance: 65 kilometres to 175 kilometres
Single tickets: No change
Weeklies: $3 increase
 
Distance: More than 175 kilometres
Single tickets: $8 decrease
Weeklies: From $2 increase to $25 decrease
 
2010 to 2012
Distance: Up to 20 kilometres
Single tickets: 20c to 80c increase
Weeklies: $3 to $6 increase
 
Distance: 20 kilometres to 65 kilometres
Single tickets: 80c to $1.40 increase
Weeklies: $9 to $9 increase
 
Distance: 65 kilometres to 175 kilometres
Single tickets: 20c to $1.20 increase
Weeklies: $7 to $9 increase
 
Distance: Over 175 kilometres
Single tickets: No change
Weeklies: $13 increas

Well, this is what I like to read about as a frequent Cityrail commuter.

It would seem that over the last few years Railcorps “Clearways” project has been plagued with problems, most of which are resolved quietly and just wind up costing the tax payer more money.

These two problems however go a little deeper, these effect customer safety on the network, and in terms of my priorities as a commuter, above trains being on time, clean and air-conditioned is the safety of myself, my family and my fellow commuters.

The two problems both revolved around bad earthing & insulation for new sub stations at Lidcombe and Revesby. It seemed that a banned contractor was used to design the earthing for these new sub stations and they were not properly insulated for their distance from underground gas and water lines. The end result…

“This led directly to the creation of a potential latent defect on the RailCorp network which could have resulted in death or injury,”

This information was learned about when the Sydney Morning Herald(www.smh.com.au) forced the government to reveal a secret Railcorp report into the events. It was released under the Freedom of Information Act.

My thanks go out to our tireless Cityrail employees who thankfully picked up the faults during the testing phase and hopefully they have been rectified.

I feel safer now catching the trains, don’t you?

For more information on this story go to SMH’s article

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/rail-blunders-hundreds-of-lives-at-risk/2008/10/29/1224956136414.html

Also, don’t forget to get your submissions in for the adjustments of Cityrails fares.

See…

http://www.ratecityrail.com/2008/10/peak-cityrail-fares-could-increase-from-2009/

Railcorp currently has a document for review with IPART at the moment in regarding it’s fares from 2009-2012. I encourage all of you to view this document and contact IPART with your thoughts on the network, and whether or not there is justification for a fares increase or not. This needs to be received by IPART no later than November 5th, 2008. Contact them here ipart@ipart.nsw.gov.au.

In brief, and I’ve not read this document too much so far, it looks like your average Sydney fare could go up as much as $1.00 for single trips, and as much as $8.00 on a weekly ticket. A welcome part to the document is the big offset for off peak returns to be considerably cheaper, down by as much as 18% for most Sydney fares.

I’ve only had a glance at the document so far, so can’t give you all a full run down, just wanted to get it out there so people had time to write in if they felt they wanted to. Obviously Railcorp hasn’t got this widely published (they didn’t last year either…).

So is this increase a good or a bad thing? Should trains in Sydney be a user pays? Or is it our right as Sydney citizens to have Government subsidesed travel?(Even though our State Government is $1Bil. in debt).

I’ll discuss all these things over the coming days as I read the document more, for the time being, what do you think?

More information on the document referred to can be found at IPART, link below.

http://www.ipart.nsw.gov.au/files/Review%20of%20CityRail%20fares%202009-2012%20-%20Draft%20Report%20and%20Draft%20Determinations%20-%20October%202008.PDF