After living in Los Angeles for a few years, I have come to appreciate public transit as a measure of a city’s mettle. Having visited New York and lived in Montréal for a bit, I knew that good public transit could make life somewhat better in a city. Living in Los Angeles for three years I came to understand and bad public transit can make a city worse than it would be having none at all. Having seen some of both ends of the spectrum, I hold Sydney in a certain amount of awe.
First of all, many large cities have subways and buses. New York takes them for granted, as does Montréal. But Sydney is built on a vast harbour with all sorts of inlets, peninsulas, and islands. So Sydney has ferries. How cool is it that our public transit passes allowed us to travel by train, bus, and ferry? How great is it that without paying an extra penny (alright, nickel—Australia doesn’t have pennies) we could take harbour cruises—including night cruises—to our hearts’ content? Very cool, I tell you. Great indeed.
What’s more the trains are relatively quiet, very clean, and comfortable. Plus the seats in many trains flip back and forth; if the seat’s facing backward and you want to face forward on your journey, just flip the seat-back over, and voila! Sure, the system of lines can be complex, but after a couple days we had it figured out. No worries.
Kudos to the Sydney CityRail and Ferry system for good urban public transport.
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