Garry Reynolds, 74, took his girlfriend on a moonlit stroll upon a boardwalk for their first date. Their second was a cruise. For Reynolds – who has survived four strokes and, like his sweetheart, Selina Ellis, endured traumatic loss – the romance has been a whirlwind.
“We’re like two teenagers going steady,” he says.
But, though the Sunshine Coast retiree may be “an old romantic,” that doesn’t stop him from being a thrifty one.
The walk, of course, was free. The boat trip was a CityCat ride on the Brisbane River which, between the two of them, tallied to a grand total of $1. The near two-hour long rail ride from coast to city cost the same.
This outing was this cheap thanks to flat 50 cent public transport fares in Queensland that begin as a trial in August and to which both major parties have committed maintaining after the election this month.
So enthused was Reynolds with his “fantastic day” that cost “bugger all” that, after enjoying “a rich mix of free museums and art galleries” on the second date, he sat down to diarise his “budget day out”.
“Arriving at Nambour in the early evening, we reflected over a delicious fair-value meal at the RSL, that while Queenslanders are increasingly venturing overseas, there are still good days out to be had for relatively little cost at home,” Reynolds chronicled.
He’s not the only one enjoying a good day for a couple of bucks. Scott Seokhoon Rhee woke his three kids early on the Monday King’s birthday public holiday and took them on a trip to an island.
Russell Island in Moreton Bay may be more known for mudflats, mangroves and midges than coconut palms and mojitos – but, with the whole tribe travelling there and back for $4, it is significantly more affordable than a round trip to Bali.
And while it may only be a 20-minute ferry ride from the mainland, after the train and bus from the Rhees’ Mango Hill home, the whole journey took almost three hours each way.
“My daughters [took] some books to read and some card games to play during the trip,” the IT worker says. “That’s part of the fun.”
Monday’s trip may have been the Rhee family’s most exotic and ambitious public transport outing yet, but it was far from their first. Originally from South Korea, Rhee moved his family from Sydney to Brisbane’s outer north about five years ago and he has been harbouring a “bucket list” of the city’s sites to see ever since, from South Bank to the University of Queensland’s St Lucia Campus.
Cheap public transport has not only turned the family into tourists in their own adopted city, but brought them closer together, Rhee says. “My daughters and my son enjoy riding on the train,” he says. “And I have some more [of a] chance to talk to them.”
What Rhee and Reynolds and their respective loved ones are experiencing on public transport may seem novel in Australia, which has – or in Queensland’s case, had – some of the most expensive public transport networks in the world. But UQ’s associate professor of urban planning, Dorina Pojani, says cases such as these fit within the “new mobilities paradigm” that has gained prominence within academic circles over the last decade or so – and been enacted in places like Luxembourg which, in 2020, made public transport free across the whole country.
“Traditionally, transport planning was done by engineers, right?” Pojani says. “And they more considered utilitarian aspects of planning … [getting] from point A to B.”
Under the new school of thinking, however, planners consider not just transport’s utility, but its associated “psychological and sociological and emotional aspects”. In this way, transport becomes not just about achieving a purpose – like getting to work or the shops – Pojani says, but becomes “a purpose in itself”.
“It’s not just about taking you from one place to the other any more,” she says – a concept already taken for granted when it comes to going for a stroll on foot, a joyride in a car or a pedal on the bike for some fresh air and exercise.
“So it’s not surprising to me that, with such a nominal price, public transport is starting to behave like these other modes [of transport] as well,” Pojani says. “And a leisure kind of use has emerged.”
Not that cheap fares have instantly turned the sunshine state into a public transport utopia – far from it. Recent Climate Council analysis found Brisbane residents have the worst access to public transport of Australia’s five largest cities and public transport deserts blight the city’s fringes.
Which is not to mention the services – or lack thereof – beyond the state’s capital, where the majority of Queenslanders live.
It was for this reason that Robert Dow, a long-term public transport champion and RAIL Back On Track advocacy group spokesperson, was initially somewhat sceptical of the new policy, which he says came like a “bolt out of the blue”.
At first, Dow was concerned it would cut into funding for much-needed service improvements, especially to the frequency of off-peak rail and bus services which he describes as “very poor” and a major deterrent to greater public transport use.
“The major factor in getting people to use public transport is not affordability,” Dow says. “Believe it or not, it’s frequency. You get that right, the rest follows.”
And, of course, those who live beyond the reach of usable public transport don’t benefit at all from the policy – other than perhaps through the indirect impact of eased road congestion.
But the Goodna man has been pleasantly surprised by some of the unexpected outcomes of almost free buses, ferries and trains. “People are suddenly starting to realise that there are some really good advantages to public transport,” he says.
“They are doing novel things that, perhaps, they wouldn’t do previously when fares cost more. It’s turned out better than we thought it would.”
So Dow is hardly surprised to hear lovebirds like Reynolds and Ellis are cruising on Brisbane’s CityCats and families like the Rhees are riding them just for fun.
“It’s a lovely journey up and down the river,” Dow says. “That’s got to be the best 50 cents you can spend in Brisbane, I’d reckon.”
