Travel Notes #1: Getting Around Melbourne

Here is my first post about the month-long vacation I had in the east coast of Australia. Rather than making a chronological series of the journey, I decided to write one topic each time. This way, I have a broader field to write about so that I am not stuck sharing stories about the amazing time and adventure I had in the land down under *evil grin*. Besides, I will not have to recall what I did on which day; it has become somewhat fuzzy since I did so many exciting activities there *another evil grin*. For this one, I will share a side of Melbourne which made me fell in love with the city: its public transport.

A city’s public transport is very important to me, and my family, because we rarely join packaged tours whenever we are travelling. We value our freedom to choose and move very highly, and using public transport gives a glimpse of life in that city, which is what I like about travelling. In every city we visited, we mainly rely on public transport to go around: London’s Tube, Paris’ Metro, Sydney’s monorail, and many other. On this matter, we can be surprisingly daring. In a trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, a few years ago, my family decided to split from our Indonesian tour group (we can only tolerate so many shopping stops in a day) and rode the underground railway, guided only by some Cyrillic scribbles from the tour guide.

Moreover, I have complained again and again about Jakarta’s public transport. This post will hopefully help people imagine the efficient, convenient, and humane public transport I always wish Jakarta will have soon. And believe me, we have lightyears to go and catch up.

Melbourne’s public transport is one of the best I have ever known - perhaps the familiarity helps a lot too. There are trains, trams, and buses in Melbourne, all of which are integrated into Metlink. This integration means we only need one ticket, the Metcard, to go almost anywhere. The fare is based on the duration, during which ticket holders have complete freedom to travel on trains, trams, and buses. Metlink offers 2-hours, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly Metcards, along with several special offers like the 10x 2-hours and 5x Daily. Metcards are also based on zones: Greater Melbourne is divided into Zones 1 and 2, with a City Saver zone for Melbourne’s CBD in Zone 1. Almost all the touristy stuffs are in Zone 1, so it is quite cheap to get around.

The main train station is Flinders Street Station; that and the stations on the edges of Melbourne’s CBD make up the City Loop. Another main station in the loop is the renovated Southern Cross Station (formerly Spencer St.) which also serves regional and interstate trains and hosts a coach terminal. Trains are useful to reach the suburbs, like in my case since I lived with my aunt in the south eastern suburbs. I think tourists who stay in the city will not need the trains very much.

On the other hand, the tram network is a great way to explore Melbourne’s city centre and its surroundings, especially because it offers more view than the underground train. Because tram routes are concentrated in the city, a stretch of road may be served by multiple routes; thus, the waiting time is very short. For example, the part of Swanston Street in the CBD is served by nine routes. A free City Circle tram is also available. The tram follows the outer roads of the CBD (Flinders, La Trobe, and Spring Sts) and also goes to the Docklands.

A particularly fun ride is the route 96 tram to St. Kilda Beach. It comes into the city from Nicholson Street in the north, passing Carlton Gardens, where the Melbourne Museum and Royal Exhibition Building are located. Then, it enters Bourke Street, goes through the Bourke Street Mall, and turns south. The tram switches into a light rail train after passing Crown Casino and travels just outside Albert Park until it becomes a tram again in St. Kilda.

Last, the buses are also convenient, although the waiting time is quite long. However, tourists rarely use the bus. I rode the bus to go to Chadstone shopping centre, and occasionally to return to my aunt’s place when I’m too lazy to walk from the nearest –yet not so near- train station.

Metlink has a useful website with all the information one could need: route maps, timetables, zoning, Metcard types, and fares. It also provides a journey planner that gives out detailed plans. I tried the feature several times; apart from the information on which train/tram/bus to take, it also calculates the walking time to get to the stops.

The public transport in Melbourne is not perfect, though. The trains do run late at times, so do the other systems. Nevertheless, compared to what we have here in Jakarta, it is so much better that I began to wonder how on Earth did I survive TransJakarta for a year. While I might come across as a whiney kid too frail for the Indonesian urban jungle, I wrote this to complete what I have written here before about the urgency of a real public transport system to be established in the capital of Indonesia.