Free Rides and Full Trains: Victoria's Public Transport Moment
Something genuinely interesting has been happening on Melbourne’s trains and trams lately, and I’ve been watching it with a mix of pleasant surprise and the usual cynical “yeah but how long will this last?” that comes with being middle-aged and politically aware in this country.
If you haven’t heard, Victoria’s public transport has been free through April and May, and the Jacinta Allan government has now announced half-price fares through to the end of 2026. It’s a $400 million commitment, and predictably, people have opinions.
Let me tell you what’s actually struck me about this whole thing, though — and it’s not the economics, at least not initially. It’s the small human stuff. Someone in an online discussion mentioned that not having to find their Myki, not having to queue at gates, not having to do that anxious tap-and-hope routine has been genuinely life-changing for them. They have ADHD, and what seems like a trivial transaction — tap a card, walk through a gate — apparently carries a surprising mental load. Others chimed in saying the same thing. One person mentioned they have fifteen Mykis scattered around their house with random balances on each, and only now have they realised what low-grade stress that little card was generating every single day.
That hit me. We design these friction points into systems and rarely stop to think about who bears the cost of that friction. Not everyone equally, it turns out.
The broader numbers are worth discussing honestly though. A University of Melbourne transport researcher noted that free fares seem to have shifted only about 26% of Victorian respondents from car trips to public transport — barely more than NSW, where people are still paying full fares. So it hasn’t dramatically emptied the roads. What it has done, according to pretty much everyone who’s commented, is pack the trains. The CBD on weekday mornings, apparently fuller than people have seen in years. A pensioner finishing their degree mentioned they used to avoid weekday trips into the city because they simply couldn’t justify the cost — now they go in regularly, grab something to eat, connect with people. That’s real. That’s the social fabric stuff that doesn’t show up neatly in transport modelling.
There’s a fair argument from some corners that this money — $400 million plus — could have gone directly into more services. Better frequency. Later running hours. Fixing the genuinely woeful V/Line situation (and look, if you’re catching the Warrnambool line right now, you have my genuine sympathy — that’s a different crisis entirely). It’s a reasonable critique. Daniel Bowen did the maths a few years back suggesting that trains running every ten minutes until 9pm every day would cost less annually than what’s being spent here. That conversation is worth having.
But here’s the thing — the political reality is that “we invested in better frequency” doesn’t land the same way with struggling families as “it’s free, get on.” And I say that not dismissively, but practically. When people are genuinely under cost-of-living pressure, tangible immediate relief matters. The ideologically pure transport policy that never gets implemented helps no one.
Is this election-year politics? Of course it is. The Victorian state election is coming and Labor knows it. But honestly — and I say this as someone who’s not a rusted-on Labor voter — when someone asks “is this election campaigning?” the only sensible response is: yes, and so is everything the opposition does, except their version tends to involve tax cuts that disproportionately benefit people who don’t need them. Choosing between types of campaigning is still a choice worth making.
The Greens will rightly point out they’ve been pushing fare-free public transport for years, and they’re not wrong. Pressure from minor parties does shift the Overton window, and Victoria’s not the first state to demonstrate that. Whether you credit Labor for implementing it or the Greens for pushing it probably depends on which bumper sticker is on your laptop, but the outcome is the outcome.
What I’d genuinely like to see come out of this — beyond the electoral cycle — is a rethink of the fare structure that outlasts the discounts. The flat daily cap penalises people making a two-stop tram trip just as much as someone commuting from the outer suburbs. The hybrid work reality means monthly passes make no economic sense for a huge chunk of workers now. These structural problems were there before free fares and they’ll be back when fares return to normal. If this period teaches us anything useful, maybe it’s that the ticketing system’s complexity and cost (that new Myki infrastructure runs to $2.8 billion over fifteen years — billion) is itself worth scrutinising.
Melbourne has world-class bones for a public transport city. The tram network alone is extraordinary by international standards. Getting people back on it, making it feel like a genuine first choice rather than a last resort — that’s worth investing in. I hope whoever’s in government after the next election remembers what full trains actually look like.