Opinion & Commentary
There is no such thing as a free bus
Life is a constant struggle. Who would know better than NSW premier Nathan Rees? But if he can’t solve his own problems, at least Mr Rees is determined to make his fellow Sydneysiders’ lives easier. That’s what he promised on Wednesday as he launched the new off-peak bus service between Circular Quay and Central Station. “Sometimes it can be difficult to know exactly which bus to catch if you’re only going a few blocks in the city”, the premier told us. The new buses will be free to use, courtesy of the NSW state government. But is Mr Rees actually making a positive contribution to public transport in Sydney or is this just a politician’s pre-Christmas gimmick?
Let’s start with some practical issues. If there is one thing that Sydney CBD does not suffer, then it is a lack of buses. In fact, if you need to get from Circular Quay to Central you already have a variety of options. Departing after, say, 2 pm you have the choice between not fewer than six different bus services within a quarter of an hour. The 343, 376, 422, 423, 426 and 428 will all get you to your destination. And if you are short of time, you can always take one of the many regular commuter trains. Clearly, there has not been a shortage of public transport options in the CBD, especially not between Circular Quay and Central.
Whether it is at all worth taking a bus is a different question, though. Walking distance from Circular Quay to Central is 2.5 kilometres if you go up Phillip and Elizabeth St. An average walker needs half an hour for this journey. Surprisingly, this is just about the time that Sydney buses take in our heavily congested CBD. So in fact, going on a bus for the whole distance of the loop service will hardly save you any time. At best it just saves you from carrying your shopping bags or your briefcase.
But maybe Mr Rees did not really intend the new service for people who want to travel all the way from the harbour to Central? Maybe it is just meant for people going a few blocks, as he said. But then the advantages of the bus almost completely disappear. The new free service will operate at a 10-minute frequency, and so the average waiting time at a bus stop will be about five minutes. But why would you want to wait for it if you only need to travel a few hundred metres? In fact, in many cases it will be faster to walk rather than to wait for the bus and then travel at a snail’s pace on the loop bus. There is no point waiting for a probably crowded bus if all you want to do is get from the QVB to Wynyard.
To sum it up, for the full journey of the new bus route there are already a large number of bus and train connections in place, and for short journeys the new loop bus simply does not promise any time savings. How such a service will make the CBD more attractive remains very much the premier’s secret.
Of course Mr Rees will claim that the new bus is going to be used by people who would not have taken public transport otherwise. But that is a somewhat nonsensical argument. If you put a zero price tag on any good or service, of course some people will go for it. But that’s not the same as saying that they actually value it as much as it costs to provide it. If they really valued it, they would be willing to pay for it, too. And at $1.80 single bus tickets in Central Sydney are probably not beyond the average Sydneysider’s reach. The new bus will merely divert passengers from the regular bus lines to the free service, resulting in the existing buses travelling empty, while the new ‘free bus’ will be packed.
So no matter how you look at it, the premier’s new free bus service does not make sense. And we should not forget that it is not actually free either. It may be provided by the state government, but the $3 million it costs are ultimately shelled out by you and me, the taxpayers. Besides, it is even paid for by taxpayers from rural NSW who in all likelihood will never use it. They are entitled to wonder why they should subsidise people taking buses in central Sydney. All of this, we should not forget, at a time when the state’s budget is in disarray and other public services are under threat.
The late Milton Friedman once said that there was no such thing as a free lunch. Could someone please tell Mr Rees that there are no free buses, either?
Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich is a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies.
