Tag: Sydney Page 1 of 4

If you’re looking for the official guide you can find it here.

I was encouraged to put together this guide by a mate who recently had cause to take his bike on the train from Sydney to Newcastle and reached out to me to understand the best way to do this. This was pre-Mariyung launch and so I explained that there was a couple of ways to approach this problem but broadly, he had the following options:

Take the XPT – Bad idea – this would require putting your bike in a special cardboard bike box, making a phone call and paying extra money.
Take the V-set – Bad idea – V-Sets have comfy seats and a certain mid-century style but they lack room for bikes. There are bike hooks in one carriage per 4 car set but they can be hard to find in the rush of boarding, are extremely awkward to use and wouldn’t fit his cargo bike anyway.
Take the Oscar – Good idea!

Up until fairly recently Oscars rarely ran north of Wyong but that is no longer the case. Generally, I don’t like spending the 3 hour trip on one because of the narrower and less comfortable seats, but there’s no denying that they have much larger and more usable toilets, wheelchair/pram accessible seating and, crucially, space to park a cargo bike. It’s as simple as wheeling it on and parking it in the vestibule, much as you would on any suburban trainset. Not ideal on trains that are very crowded and have lot of people getting on and off all the time, but perfectly fine for the run up to Newcastle.

The only problem was, how was a layperson like my mate suppose to know all of this AND know before they got the station what kind of rolling stock would be operating the service they were hoping to catch.

Enter ‘The Unofficial Guide to Taking your Bike on the train in NSW’.

At the Station

Before you even think about leaving the house to head on your trip, the first decision you need to make is if you’re going to take your bike with you or leave it at the station. If you’re leaving it at the station, you’ve got three options:

Locking your bike to a standard bike loop – If no bike loops are available, consider a friendly fence post or parking sign. At most stations I wouldn’t recommend doing this overnight.
Locking your bike up in a secure shed – TfNSW have started rolling out secure bike parking. It’s undercover, has 24 hour CCTV and requires swiping a registered opal card to access. I haven’t used these but they seem pretty great and I would definitely give one a go overnight. You can find out where they are and how to register your opal card for access here. I’ve spotted them in the wild at West Ryde and Schofields.
Locking your bike up in a private ‘bike locker’ – These are older and apparently there’s 830 of them across 110 train stations. You might have spotted the big green boxes around and about. These can be privately hired on a month-by-month basis here, which probably isn’t much use unless you’re doing so as part of a regular commute.

Bike Shed and Bike Locker side by side. Credit: TfNSW.

Okay, so you’ve decided to take your bike with you. You’ll be pleased to know that this is free of charge on all Opal accepting train services run by Sydney Trains or NSW Trainlink. Gone are the days of theoretically having to pay a child’s fare for your bike during peak hour!

Next step, getting onto the platform. In days gone by, the CityRail map used to have little wheelchair icons to indicate which stations had a lift (or, presumably, a ramp). That’s gone in the name of legibility so now you’ll have to head to the TfNSW website and look up your train station. Scroll down to accessibility and if it says ‘Lift’ than there is lifted access from the street onto the platform. If not, you’ll probably need to be able to drag your bike up and/or down the stairs but you might get lucky with a ramp (Hi Broadmeadow).

The glorious final iteration of the CityRail network map is cluttered, but you can’t fault it for providing station detail!

Suburban Sydney Trains

If you’re planning on boarding a suburban Sydney Train there really isn’t too much to worry about. Some trains will have slightly more roomy vestibules but all will accommodate you and your bike. There are a couple of standard approaches I’ve witnessed to taking your bike on the train:

Sit in the side facing seats vestibule with your bike in front of you
Stand between the doors holding onto your bike while it rests against a pole
Kickstand the bike upright or secure it to a pole and then sit down in the vestibule

There’s pros and cons to each but I think getting as far away from the doors as possible is going to make your trip more pleasant, particularly if you’re expecting the train to be somewhat crowded.

Sydney Metro

Much the same as taking your bike on Sydney Trains. The first or last doors have some seats that flip up and tend to have a bit more room. Watch out these things can get crammed in peak hour.

Intercity NSW Trains

Okay this is where it gets interesting. The first thing you’ll need to find out is what type of train will be operating your service. The easiest way to do this is to use one of the various trip planning apps. All these apps use the same data feed so just pick one that shows the information you want in a format you like. I personally use and recommend TripView. AnyTrip is also very cool but probably more so for enthusiasts than the casual user. If the trip planning tool you are using doesn’t tell you what kind of train is running your service, pick a different one.

Personally I wouldn’t favour spending three hours on an Oscar, but if you’re travelling with a bike it’s a solid option.

There are about half a dozen different kinds of intercity rolling stock which will affect how you take your bike onboard and how annoying doing so is. You can check out their features and even floorplans on this handy webpage. Here they are in approximate order from worst to best experience:

V-Set (also known as an ‘Intercity train’)

The V-Set is hands down my favourite train. They’re the oldest passenger trains running in NSW dating as far back as 1970 and they ooze mid-century class. I’ve heard them described as the ‘poor-man’s business class’ for the well-padded seats, carpeted walls and coat hooks. Just try to avoid using the bathroom and don’t forget you’ll need to pull the train door open when you’re getting off!

The V-Set might show up in your app of choice as an ‘Intercity train’. They can be found travelling to Newcastle or the Blue Mountains. Expect them to be retired from service by 2026 (although they said that about 2023 and here we are…).

One carriage per 4 cars should have bike hooks. Good luck figuring out which one it is. I haven’t actually used these before but I’ve seen them and it looks hard. Everything on a V-Set is pre-DDA compliance so don’t expect much room to turn around and know that while you’re trying to do anything you’ll be blocking a bunch of other passengers from getting past you.

If I need to ride a V-Set with my bike I usually jump in the first or last door of the train and stay in the vestibule. People can squeeze past as they get on or off the train and there’s no access into the guards compartment so you don’t get through traffic.

Avoid taking your bike on a V-Set if possible and don’t even think about it with a cargo bike, touring bike or anything else oversize.

Endeavour Railcar

The Endeavours can be found on the South Coast Line (south of Kiama), the Hunter Line, the Southern Highlands Line and the Blue Mountains Line if you catch one of two daily Bathurst Bullets in each direction.

Endeavour railcar. Credit: Hugh Llewellyn

These trains lack any seating in the vestibule and have small doors, so they aren’t ideal for bikes. That said, they do have luggage and wheelchair areas that might double as bike parking, but I haven’t used them before so I can’t comment. Thankfully the volumes of passengers getting on and off trips run by endeavours should be very low so if you have to park your bike somewhere it partially blocks people and get up each time the train stops, it shouldn’t be a big deal.

Avoid an Endeavour if you can but don’t fret if you can’t.

Hunter Railcar

The Hunter railcars have been plying the Hunter line for almost 20 years and are basically a single deck diesel version of the millennium trains. They’ve got large doors and side seating in the vestibule. Taking your bike on one of these is basically the same as taking it on a suburban train.

Tick. Just like in Sydney!

OSCAR (also known as an H-Set)

The Outer Suburban Railcars were brought in for shorter distance intercity trips that experience high peak demand and needed larger capacity trains. They were originally designed to run to Wollongong and Wyong but can now be found running as far as Newcastle.

They’re from this century so expect wheelchair accessible toilets, automatic doors and side facing seating in the vestibule. Taking your bike on one of these is basically the same as taking it on a suburban train.

Tick. Just like in Sydney!

Mariyung (also known as a D-Set)

The much-delayed new intercity Mariyung trains take their name from the Dharug word for Emu. It’s a clever pun because not only are emus fast and graceful over long distances, but the 3-letter acronym EMU in railway parlance stands for Electric Multiple Unit, the type of train the Mariyung is.

Since December 2024 the Mariyungs are finally in operation. You can find them plying the route between Sydney and Newcastle and they should be rolled out to the Blue Mountains Line to replace the V-Sets in the coming year/s.

A V-Set and Mariyung (right) at Central Station. Credit: Dan Himbrechts

These trains are the crème of the crop, bringing intercity rail transport in NSW into the 2010s! Expect to find USB-A ports, 240V wall sockets and folding tray tables. Unlike on all the other trains listed here, you’ll actually be able to enjoy those features because the Mariyungs have legit bike racks! You can park your bike just like you’re at the shops, stow your luggage like you’re on a train to the airport (not in Sydney though lol) and sit down in a seat like a normal person.

The Mariyungs are made up of either 4 or 6 car sets which can be grouped together to create 4, 6, 8 or 10 car trains. My understanding is that each 4 or 6 car set will have one carriage with bike parking, so if your train is 8 or 10 cars long it should have two.

This handy side and plan view of the Mariyung ‘B’ type car shows then large exterior bike indicator and the location of the racks right by the doorway.

To spot the bike parking just walk (or ride) alongside the train until you see a larger-than-life size picture of a bike. Board through these doors, put your bike in the rack and you’re good to go.

Now this is living!

Regional NSW Trains

Okay that’s the relatively good news. If you’re heading further afield than the intercity rail network (i.e past Scone, Dungog, Bathurst or Goulburn) you’re going to need to mess with the NSW Trainlink checked luggage rules. These trains require seat reservations to travel on and your bike will need to be booked along as checked luggage. This generally isn’t free and can’t be done online; you’ll need to call up.

There are also draconian rules about how your bike must be packed that seem to be designed to discourage people from bothering to do so.

Be aware that NSW Trainlink staff take these rules seriously. I have seen a person be told off for attempting to take a folded-up Brompton style bike onto the train and place it in the luggage rack.

Yes, it fit in the luggage rack.

Yes, it was smaller and lighter than other luggage in the luggage rack.

No, they did not require assistance from staff, and

No, it did not unduly inconvenience other passengers.

However, the rules state that:

A limit of one (1) bicycle per passenger is permitted.
Reservations are essential.
Bicycles will be stored in the checked luggage area.

The bicycle (including protective containers) must weigh less than 20 kilograms to be accepted. If the bicycle exceeds 20 kilograms in weight, it cannot be accepted.

Push Bicycles:

Bicycles must be contained in a cardboard bicycle box or commercially produced protective bag to protect the bicycle during transport.
Bicycle boxes can be obtained from bicycle retailers or provided upon request.
When packing the bicycle, ensure that no part of it protrudes.
Boxes must not be torn or damaged to ensure the safe transportation of the bicycle.
Maximum dimensions when packed: 135cm long x 80cm high x 24cm wide.
A supplementary charge of $12.10 applies for push bicycles.

Folding Bicycles:

Folding bicycles must be packed in a commercially produced protective cover bag.
Maximum dimensions when folded: 79cm long x 59cm high x 36cm wide.
No additional charges apply for carrying folding bicycles.

The passenger in question didn’t have a commercially produced protective cover bag and hadn’t called up to make a special (free) reservation for their folding bike and so was in breach of the rules.

That said, NSW Trainlink have tacitly acknowledged the current system doesn’t work very well for cyclists. Stage 1 of a trial to allow ‘roll-on’ bikes on the XPT was completed in 2024 and Stage 2 is planned for 2025.

Hopefully in the near future there will be a more legible system, something like a bike rack in the luggage car would work fine, I’m sure.

The future of regional travel

The R-Sets are due to enter service from this year and we can only assume that they will have dedicated bicycle storage facilities for passengers. These trains are intended to replace the Xplorers, XPTs and Endeavour railcars over the coming couple of years.

The Regional Rail project website has a FAQ around bike racks which says:

The new regional intercity trains will have dedicated bike spaces.

The new long and short regional trains have been designed for bicycles to be stored in line with current NSW TrainLink procedures, but these methods will be reviewed before the new regional fleet is introduced. As part of this review process, concept testing is being carried out regarding the feasibility and viability of taking and storing bikes on-board without boxing.

Sounds promising, if not entirely certain. This should mean, in theory, that by 2028 you’ll be able to seamlessly take your bike on any passenger train service in NSW – tourist trains and land cruises notwithstanding, hooray! Bring on the rail trails!

Addendum: Most of the above has been put together from my own experience, if I’ve got anything wrong or you’ve got some better ideas on how to roll onto trains in NSW I’d love to hear about it!

Toll Relief Mania

By Jed C

On February 21, 2023

In Sydney Transport, Transport

In the lead up to next month’s state election Chris Minns and NSW Labor have been dropping transport policy ideas like they’re going out of fashion.

Much of it seems to be ill-thought-out populist dogma that is, at best, harmless: mobile phone chargers at busy train stations, or manufacturing more trains locally. The first is a cute irrelevance, while the second could be a boon for Newcastle but is really an employment and business policy, rather than a transport one.

Last week’s high-profile policy unveiling is anything but harmless.

If elected, NSW Labor has promised to introduce a $60 weekly cap per vehicle on toll roads in Sydney thus ending ‘Toll Mania’. Their argument is simple and easy to pitch in the short-attention-span world of social media: public transport fares are capped, so tolls should be too.

The logic is flawed and if this policy is introduced it will be bad news for the state. Let’s have a look at why.

Public transport is a social good, cars are not. We, collectively, want people to take public transport. Cars, usually carrying just one person, produce a negative externality to the city. They cause congestion, they pollute, they need to be parked somewhere all day and night and, once in awhile, they crash into a pedestrian or cyclist and kill them. We subsidise public transport because we can all get around faster, more healthily and safer when people use it. Just because we cap Opal fares does not mean we should cap tolls.
Induced demand. Cheaper tolls will encourage people to drive more. If you’re planning a trip for Saturday and you’ve reached your Opal cap, you know that you can take the train for free. Hooray! If Chris Minns’ policy becomes reality this logic will apply to toll roads. You could do laps on the M5/M7/M2/Eastern Distributor all weekend if you fancy. For free. Free for you, anyway.
There is no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to tolls. The NSW government collects all public transport fares in the state and uses them to (partially) pay for all public transport service. This applies even if the bus or train is run by a private operator. Tolls do not work like this. One company, Transurban, owns almost all the toll roads in NSW. Contracts have been signed stipulating toll prices. If the NSW government changes the pricing structure, they will have to pay the shortfall to Transurban. If a driver hits the $60 weekly cap the rest of their ‘free trips’ will be paid for directly by the taxpayers of NSW.
NSW stands for New South Wales, not Newcastle-Sydney-Wollongong. Minns’ is keen to point out that that the brunt of road tolls are worn by residents of Western Sydney. This is undoubtedly true. After all, our toll roads are in Sydney and the people that use them generally come from areas that lack high quality public transport or walkable mixed-use neighbourhoods. If this policy is enacted, residents from regional NSW, public transport users and anyone that does not regularly take toll roads will be directly subsidizing the road use of those that do. It’s a transfer from rural to urban, from public transport to motorists, from have-nots to haves.
This policy is regressive. It is targeted firmly at the middle. Labor have stated just 51,000 car owners will benefit from the policy. The rich don’t care about tolls, although they will benefit too. The poor are less likely to own a car and less likely to take toll roads often. This policy doesn’t reduce tolls in a way that benefits occasional users such as people from the country, public transport users and those that work locally. It will only benefit regular toll users that are clocking in more than $60 a week.

A photo of Chris Minns standing on a freeway overpass appearing to be in animated conversation. — Chris Minns is promising to end Toll Mania in Sydney by giving our state’s heaviest 50,000 users a free ride on the roads courtesy of the rest of the state. Photo credit: The St George Leader

A lot of people, I’m thinking about taxi and rideshare drivers, tradies and long-distance commuters, spend a lot more than $60 a week on tolls. These users will have their toll bill reduced dramatically and will take more trips on toll roads than they otherwise would. Why not? They’re free! All this extra money will go straight to Transurban shareholders, courtesy of the NSW taxpayer. This policy isn’t just populist, it is corporate welfare on a staggering scale.

The people of NSW deserve a government that can think critically about the rapidly changing world we live in and introduce infrastructure and policy to help us all survive and thrive. This policy demonstrates that NSW Labor are thinking only about residents of Sydney, do not take climate change or urban congestion seriously and are playing fast and loose with our collective wealth.

A toll cap will push more people onto motorways and off public transport. It will be expensive, diverting transport funding away from public transport projects and towards corporate profit. It is a regressive policy that demonstrates a profound ignorance of the complexity of our state’s transport system.

If you’re thinking of taking a punt on Labor to win the election next month you should put your money where your mouth is and buy a few Transurban shares, too.

Both Sides of the Political Divide

If you’ve spent any time in Sydney in the last 30 odd years it goes without saying that building new toll roads, alongside approving new fossil fuel projects ($), is about as close as we get to bipartisan policy in NSW. The M4, M2, M5, Eastern Distributor, Cross City Tunnel, Lane Cove Tunnel and the M7 all opened well before Westconnex got underway and it’s a he said/she said as to which major party is more responsible for the excess of toll roads in Sydney.

‘Toll relief’ projects go back almost as far and enjoy similar bipartisan support. The catch being that, with the exception of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Tunnel tolls, any ‘toll relief’ scheme is a direct cash transfer to our privately owned tollway operators and the name ‘Transurban’ just keeps cropping up.

A screenshot of a web search for 'who owns sydney's toll roads'. There are a bunch of results and they prominently mention Transurban. — A quick search doesn’t leave much doubt as to who owns Sydney’s toll roads.

Bob Carr kicked off this habit all the way back in 1995 when he was elected on the promise of offering cashback for drivers on the M5 motorway; now part owned by the State Government and part owned by Transurban.

As toll roads spread like tentacles across Sydney a more holistic approach to toll relief was deemed necessary, one that didn’t quite so obviously porkbarrel a few swing seats in Southwestern Sydney.

In 2017 Gladys Berejiklian announced free car rego if you rack up a big enough annual toll bill. In 2019 the scheme was expanded to give discounted registration to moderate toll road users. Just last year the Perrottet government expanded the scheme even further and adopted the cashback model whereby drivers receive a portion of the tolls they pay back directly, in this case after exceeded a given threshold.

Not to be outdone by the Liberals, Minns’ is keen to make sure that the Labor party are offering the biggest boon to Transurban and incentivising car usage the most.

What’s most problematic about the latest iteration as put forward by NSW Labor is that it offers totally free toll road use beyond a threshold. Perrottet’s version only offers a partial discount on toll fees and spreads this benefit to a wider number of people, not just our state’s heaviest toll road users. The Labor version is more costly, less inclusive and less progressive.

Just one more toll road bro

What’s obvious through all of this is that the dream of ‘Build-Operate-Transfer’ was always too good to be true. We were promised massively discounted motorway construction where the brunt of the cost would be borne by the user and seamlessly managed by the private sector.

What we’ve ended up with is a classic late-stage-capitalism grift: the Government splits the construction bill with the private sector who sign lengthy operational contracts with over inflated toll rates and guaranteed quarterly increases, voters complain and so the taxpayer steps back in to foot the bill, only now instead of just paying for the construction of the thing we have to meet the terms of a contract designed to provide ongoing return to Transurban’s shareholders. One of whom, incidentally, is the now former Finance Minister. Although if you have a managed super fund, which is basically every person that has ever had a job, then you’re probably one too.

At this point the road out from the downward spiral is long and politically treacherous. It’s a safe bet that the two major parties will continue their one-upmanship when it comes to new toll roads and subsequent ‘toll relief’.

Come to think of it, whichever way you’re punting this election the safest bet is on Transurban.

The Urban Form and Transport of Marseille (and Sydney)

By Jed C

On September 22, 2022

In Travel

It’s been almost a year since I last posted here, but my excuse is a good one. I’ve been flat out wrapping up Following the Flow, the documentary I’ve been producing for the past three years. You can watch the trailer and find out more on our website. We are also showing on SBS this Sunday September 25th at 4pm to celebrate World Rivers Day. If you missed that you might still be able to catch it OnDemand!

OK now to Marseille.

Spending a week in Marseille, on France’s Mediterranean Cote d’Azur, I couldn’t help but find myself constantly comparing its public transport and urban fabric with that of Sydney. Aside from the fact that I happened to find myself there, I think these two cities have some similarities that make such a comparison worthwhile.

Marseille as an administrative area has the 2nd largest population of any French city, around 900,000 people. The greater ‘Metro Marseille’ region has a population of around 1.9m people spread across 4,000 square kilometres, making it the 3rd most populous metro area in France after Paris and Lyon.

Marseille’s Vieux Port neighbourhood. Being a tourist, I spent a fair bit of time around here. Credit: Tia Monto

Greater Sydney, for comparison, as described by the Australian Bureau of Statistics spans some 12,000 square kilometres reaching from Bargo in the South, Blackheath in the West and as far as Wyong Shire in the North. Personally I would’ve drawn the boundaries a little closer in. This area is home to around 5.2 million people; Australia’s most populous metropolitan area (but perhaps not for much longer!).

At first glance these cities might appear to be on completely different scales, but the relative density of French cities (and also that of the inner and middle suburbs of Sydney), as well as the countless other significant urban agglomerations within a 1-2 hour commute of Marseille probably makes the size and makeup of these cities more similar than they first appear.

Comparing Sydney to Paris in this way would be less useful as Paris is on an altogether different scale with 13m people spread over 19,000 square kilometres. The vast bulk of them, 11 million, living in the 2,000 square kilometre urban area. Density and total size wise, Sydney has more in common with Marseille than Paris. Besides, I didn’t go to Paris so I can’t exactly write about it!

Metro

Until 2019 Sydney didn’t have a metro. This is more a quirk of definition than anything else. From a tourist or resident’s perspective much of the Sydney Trains network effectively functions as a metro. It is sometimes described as a mix between a European metro and suburban railway (or S-bahn in the Germanosphere).

Marseille built a more traditional metro system in the late 1970s and it now consists of 2 lines running short 4 car rubber tyred and driver operated trains.

A metro train pulling into Castellane Station on Line 1.

The scale of the system is pretty modest with 31 stations spread across 23km. Note the typically high European station density with an average of a station every 750m.

I really like the sleek simplicity of the over door map on-board the Marseille Metro.

Sydney’s Metro, as I’ve expressed elsewhere, is a different beast entirely. Using longer 6 car driverless trains in two years time it will span 65km from Tallawong to Bankstown, coincidently with the same number of stations as Marseille’s system: 31. In Sydney that’s a station on average every 2.1km.

I discussed the problem with the density of stations on Sydney’s Metro in detail in the context of the CBD and Southwest Metro and also in regard to Metro West. In short, there’s nothing inherently wrong with widely stopped stations but it does mean that more people are going to need to use another mode of transport to actually get there. It changes the dynamic of what a metro does. In Marseille, metro stations are close enough together that if you live anywhere near a metro line and are able, you can comfortably walk there.

Tram

Like Sydney, Marseille has 3 tram lines – and two of them share a significant amount of track in the CBD. In fact, their network diagrams have a lot in common!

The Marseille tramway serves 32 stations across 16km of route while Sydney’s light rail serves 42 stops across a 25km system.

There’s some definitely network similarities going on here…

Next year, with the opening of the Parramatta Light Rail, Sydney’s major satellite city will feature it’s own modest tram system. So too, since 2014, has Aubagne, 20 minutes by train from Marseille’s main station, had its own 7 stop tram system.

In the urban core of Marseille the tram typically runs in streets that have had car traffic completely removed, so too with George Street in Sydney.

Rue de Rome is for trams, bikes and people.

In both cities as the tram leaves the CBD it tends to run in a median or kerb right of way next to mixed traffic lanes and in both cities there are some short sections of tunnel. Sydney’s L1 is a bit of an outlier here running along an old freight corridor.

One key difference in the systems when considering the urban fabric more broadly is the length of the trams. Thanks to some weird wrangling with the RMS, Sydney’s L2 and L3 are serviced by coupled pairs of Alstom trams totalling 67m long – enormous in an urban environment. This was essentially done to increase the total capacity of the line without increasing service frequency – ostensibly to avoid delaying motorists at busy intersections along the route.

The trams in Marseille are a more conventional 42.5m long.

People, trams and outdoor dining. Rue de Rome has some serious George Street vibes.

It turns out the similarity of the two systems goes way back. In 1876 Marseille opened its first horse drawn tramway. In 1899, its first electric tram. The system was slowly dismantled and replaced with buses and trolley buses starting in 1945 and finishing in 1960. Only one 3km line remained in operation through this period. The first service in the modern network ran in 2007, 47 years after the old system’s almost total closure.

For comparison, Sydney’s first horse drawn tramway began service in 1861 and its first electric tram in 1898. Sydney’s tramways began to be dismantled in the 1950s to be replaced by buses, a process that wound up in 1961. The first stage of Sydney’s current light rail network opened up in 1997, 36 years later.

Evidently the processes that drove the demise of Sydney’s tramways played out the world over.

Buses

Fixed line transport (trains, metro, trams) are the friend of the tourist. It’s easy to figure out where they go, typically straightforward to acquire tickets and you usually don’t have to press the button or pull the cord to alight. Buses offer a more varied experience and in many cities they are totally impenetrable to visitors.

In this regard Marseille is a revelation. Cash payment is accepted on board (2 euro for a 1 hour any mode transfer ticket), almost every stop has a shelter featuring a network map, timetable and often a live next-service display, every stop has an easy to remember name and, best of all, on-board displays that actually work let you know where the bus is and what stop is upcoming – plus you can see where to transfer to other routes, trams and metro. Can you tell I’m a big fan?

This is actually a tram stop, but the info at bus stops was just as comprehensive.

There are some downsides: the system is extremely popular and not frequent enough. Bus overcrowding is severe more often than not. Fare evasion seems rife, although periodic tickets weren’t particularly expensive so maybe a lot of people have annual passes and just don’t need to tap on. We were waved onto buses on multiple occasions without paying for some reason or other. The buses mostly operated in mixed traffic though I have to say, despite the narrow roads and haphazard parking, traffic never seemed to be too bad. I’ve definitely been stuck in a lot worse bus traffic in Sydney. This could be a bias of the routes I was travelling on, maybe things are worse in commuter neighbourhoods.

A short wheelbase bus plying a narrow road in the old part of town. Note the bollards in the foreground to stop cars blocking the footpath and a car (legally) parked obstructing the footpath on the far side.

As in Sydney, rear door boarding is discouraged by signage, but unlike in Sydney it often happens anyway, particularly when there are a lot of people trying to get onto an already crowded bus. Despite the crowding I didn’t ever see a bus driver not let someone on (although a few passengers elected to wait rather than scrum their way on) and only once did our driver completely skip a stop with waiting passengers. As opposed to Sydney it seems like the onus of safety falls more on the passengers than the driver.

Onboard displays showing accurate next stop information are on every bus and they actually work! It reminded me of the time when Sydney Buses started having these circa 2005, but they were either always off, showed static or ran ads…not so useful!

Another funny similarity with Sydney is the existence of a B1, although Marseille has a B2, B3A and B3B as well. Like in Sydney the B1 signifier meant an important and frequent route. The Marseille B1 runs from a downtown Metro station out to an isolated university campus and seemed to operate in a mix of bus-only lanes and mixed traffic. Also like the Sydney B1 the Marseille B1 has its own vehicles, articulated buses instead of double deckers. Sadly I didn’t manage a photo of one.

Ticketing

Buying a ticket from the machines at metro stations (and some tram stops) is extremely straightforward. Just click on the photo of the British flag to swap it into English and select the duration of your ticket. 1 hour starts at 2 euro, 24 hours is 5.20 and as far as I’m aware you can go as high as an annual ticket. Options!

Buying the ticket on the bus is a little bit trickier, without French I’m not sure if the whole gamut of tickets was available onboard but we had no trouble buying 1 hour tickets from the driver.

Contrast to Sydney where we lack time based fares which, despite some shortcomings, are very, very tourist friendly. On the plus side all opal services (pretty much all services) allow tap on/off with a credit card which is obscenely tourist friendly – at least if you aren’t price sensitive and have a credit card! The flip side of that is that paying cash fares is all but impossible in Sydney and to do so you’d have to figure out that you need to go to a convenience store and buy an opal card with cash there – tricky!

Suburban Trains

I didn’t take any suburban trains in Marseille so I’m going to refrain from commenting on them but I’m fairly sure they exist in some capacity.

Intercity Trains

Marseille St Charles is a terminus station along the same lines as the ‘Sydney Terminal’ intercity platforms at Central. From here high speed ‘TGV’ trains, express ‘Intercitie’ trains and local/regional ‘TER’ trains extend out across Provance, France and even to a handful of international destinations.

Figuring out which trains require pre-purchased tickets and how to nab the best fare isn’t super easy, but compared to schlepping to an airport, travelling through French stations is a breeze. In the past few weeks I’ve taken all 3 kinds of trains a bunch of times and as anyone who has trained around Europe can attest, the whole thing works remarkably well.

Marseille St Charles is at a junction point of the 2 Metro lines making it an easy connection to the rest of the city.

Sydney’s Central Station has roughly hourly departures on what are now called NSW Trainlink Intercity services – the equivalent of French TER trains – in 3 directions: North to Newcastle, South to Wollongong and West to the Blue Mountains. Our NSW Trainlink XPT and Xplorer trains are roughly equivalent to the French Intercitie trains, offering First and Second Class seats and requiring a reservation to travel. The frequency from Sydney is much lower than Marseille as you might expect and there is sadly no antipodean analogue for the French TGV.

Seaport

Getting a bit off topic from the realm of urban transport here but there’s an interesting comparison to be made between the two cities’ harbours. Both Sydney and Marseille have beautiful old harbours surrounded by historic architecture, luxury hotels and tourist orientated attractions. In both cities huge new container terminals have been built away from the old harbours, taking the necessary nuisance of global trade away from the panoramic views of the old port and freeing up much needed space for parking luxury yachts.

Both cities are both well and truly on cruise ship itineraries although Marseille is notable for also being a hub for enormous ferries that connect the French mainland with Corsica and also across to old colonial possessions in Algeria and Tunisia.

Sydney’s last ocean going long distance ferry left some 15 years ago when the Spirit of Tasmania axed their Sydney-bound service.

Urban fabric

Marseille has been continuously occupied since 600BC when it was founded from the sea. Culturally the city seems to be just as connected across the Mediterranean as it is to the French mainland.

Because of this long and varied history, much of the city was built well before automobiles were a consideration. On the positive side, the human scale of so much of the city is a pleasure to explore. On the negative side, people have surely asserted cars into this environment in which they don’t really fit and it is basically a clusterfuck.

In the more commercially orientated parts of the city bollards do the heavy lifting of stopping cars obstructing footpaths. In older and wealthier residential neighbourhoods cars are EVERYWHERE. They’re parked blocking the tiny footpaths and they’re parked partially obstructing intersections. The only saving grace is that thankfully the disease of the ever larger all American vehicle is (mostly) yet to infect Europe, so most cars are 2 door hatches or the size of a Mazda 3. Ten years ago this was true of Sydney, alas no longer.

The surest way to keep cars out of a street is with bollards, just ask the French.

Pedestrian environment

Given all the things I’ve outlined so far you won’t be surprised to hear that being on foot in Marseille is a mixed bag. Neighbourhoods are so dense that if you walk for an hour across the city you will without doubt encounter many interesting goings-on. This really makes it the perfect city to visit as a tourist.

In the Old Port and other central areas pedestrian amenity is amazing. Large boulevards and plazas are given over to people and restaurants and bars spill out into these enormously popular public spaces.

A typical street in the Vieux Port neighbourhood of Marseille.

This trend caught my eye as in much of Australia if a business wants to occupy part of the footpath they need a permit and they’re up against other footpath users for that right. All sorts of people require access to the footpath so in some respects it isn’t an ideal place to sprawl a commercial undertaking. But it’s a shame that like so many debates in Australia, this conversation pits different groups that want to use our (relatively wide) streets for anything that isn’t moving and storing cars against one another.

More Vieux Port. Contraflow bike lanes are pretty common and help make the city heaps more accessible on bike than it is in a car. They also make streets busier and less predictable which encourages people to drive more carefully and go slower. The speed limit here is either 20 or 30, but you’d be hard pressed (safely) going any faster than that anyway.

It’s wonderful to see a city that has reclaimed so much streetspace that a restaurant’s 20 outdoor tables can coexist with street vendors, people sitting around or waiting for the tram, people whizzing by on e-scooters and walkers of all speeds, ages and mobilities.

Micromobility

I spent my week in Marseille telling anyone who would listen (read: my friends) that the micromobility revolution was underway! It was exciting to see and not just when we doubled up on hirable e-scooters for the post-midnight run home one night.

E-scooters and e-bikes with buzzy one syllable names and distinctive colour schemes hang around on street corners, in plazas and occasionally en masse in designated storage areas. Unlike in Sydney, they are extremely popular. When your correspondent went to hire one (well not me actually, I didn’t have the requisite internet to download the app with) the first 5 or so we checked were all out of battery. On several occasions I saw people contracting to these international tech companies out there moving the scooters around and replacing their batteries.

There are millions more of these things about, but I’m not much of a photographer…

But it isn’t just the start-ups making this type of mobility seem like a bigger deal. Personal e-scooters and e-bikes seem to be just as common as the humble pushie in Marseille. The great thing is that because of the flexible use of public space for transport, the city is ready for it.

In Sydney we like to carefully delineate roadspace for specific uses. This means that the roads work very well for cars, okay for buses and pedestrians and quite poorly for cyclists. They aren’t really welcome on the footpath or the road.

In Marseille on the other hand, except in the parts of the city where cars are explicitly excluded, the road is for everyone. Pedestrians (old and young), cars, buses, motorbikes, pushbikes, scooters, wheelchairs, whatever. This definitely isn’t ideal, particularly for wheelchair users and the less mobile who have to navigate this treacherous landscape, but it does mean that when something that has the potential to totally change how we get around cities for the better comes along, society doesn’t freak out. E-scooters? No worries, I already have to dodge the motorised variety!

The pedestrian environment can be pretty hostile in Marseille, but at least you aren’t about to get run over by a 3 tonne ute!

Instead of waging war on e-scooters, as we are in Sydney, they are being embraced by the Marseillaise like no doubt so many other changes over the 2600 years they’ve been there.

Lessons for Sydney

This post is much longer than I intended (I never have been one for brevity) and I’m aware that I’m a transport and planning enthusiast who spent a grand total of eight nights in a foreign city. My insights might be interesting but they probably aren’t profound.

That said, I did want to end on a sort of summary of some of the transport/urban design wins from Marseille that Sydney could relatively easily adopt and a couple of other thoughts that comparing the two cities brought up for me.

We need to start taking steps to limit the growth in size of passenger vehicles in Australia immediately. Marseille is car strewn, but it works(ish) because the cars are at least relatively compact. If we replaced all of them with Ford Rangers and SUVs the streets would be so cluttered that no one else, be they on foot or driving a bus, could get passed and the consequences would be deadly. In 99% of cases there is no need for people to drive such large vehicles, they do because it’s convenient, comfortable and you can. Our cities and states can take steps to stop this trend because we know where it leads: just take a look across the Pacific (from Sydney!) or the Atlantic (from Marseille!)
We need to urgently build a network of dedicated micromobility lanes and low speed shared streets. In Sydney the roads belong to cars. That isn’t going to change anytime soon. People want to get out of cars for health reasons and because it’s more fun, cheaper and often faster. But we need safe spaces to encourage that. That means building a lot more dedicated bike/micromobility lanes that are wide enough for all kinds of users; I’m looking at you old guy going 30km/h down the footpath in your electric wheelchair. These lanes need to actually connect all the way to where someone wants to go. Enough with the piecemeal bike lanes that get tacked on when there’s spare space in the roadway. Enough with the chevrons and green paint on a 6 lane highway and calling it bike infrastructure. We need lanes that are separated from traffic or we need 30km/h maximum speed limits and streets that are designed to make going any faster than this completely unviable (see: the backstreets of Newtown).
Frequency is freedom. If you are reliably running your public transport service at a minimum 10 minute frequency all day and into the evening people will use it. We need to stop freaking out about travel time in every conversation about improving transit in Sydney (which cost us several really useful infill stations on Metro West) and start making as many of our trains, trams, ferries, buses and metro as frequent as possible for as long as possible. This is already well underway.
We can and should reclaim as much of the roadway from cars as possible. The standard street in Sydney is one chain wide, that’s just over 20 metres. In so much of the city that means 2 lanes of traffic, 2 lanes of parked cars and maybe 2m on either side for a footpath, trees, bins, cafe seating, bus stops, utility boxes and everything else. We need to take what’s been going on in the city and spread it to our inner suburbs by reducing the number of vehicle lanes, reducing the number of on-street parking spaces and creating more space for all the stuff that is currently crammed onto the footpath. I’m sure it seemed like a huge ask in Marseille and it definitely ruffled a few feathers when George Street was pedestrianised but in both instances no one is looking back. It’s just so much better now for everyone.