Today’s Age featured a story on increased weekend road congestion amid the State Government’s failure to provide improved public transport services on weekends.
Weekend public transport services must be increased. Work, sport, shopping and entertainment now occur around the clock and the artificial divide between Friday and Saturday for public transport services is no longer viable.
While The State Opposition stated it would consider upgraded public transport services on the weekends. The State Government has again ignored the problem completely:
Victorian Opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder backed the call for more weekend public transport, saying the State Government was operating a "1950s-style public transport system catering to nine-to-five workers".
A future Liberal state government would consider upgrading weekend public transport for Melbourne, Mr Mulder said.
The State Government said it had last year introduced the Sunday $2.50 saver ticket to encourage public transport use.
With two-thirds of Melbourne lacking Sunday public transport services, the discounted Sunday travel benefits the inner city residents with ready access to public transport while sacrificing Melbourne’s outer suburbs to weekend car dependence.Action and not tokenistic gestures is required to reduce weekend traffic congestion.