What you said about City of Melbourne’s plan for cheaper myki fares

The City of Melbourne has been blasted over its proposal to introduce cheaper myki fares for city commuters. Have your say.

The City of Melbourne’s proposal for cheaper myki fares for city commuters has been panned by Herald Sun readers.

Lord Mayor Sally Capp is set to call on the state government to cut the cost of public transport fares on Monday and Friday for office workers in a bid to accelerate the city’s economic recovery.

The City of Melbourne branded the proposal a “game-changer”, with all 11 councillors at Town Hall on Tuesday night voting in favour of the plan, which was put forward by the council’s city economy advisory committee.

It’s not yet known whether the council will lobby the state government to cut public transport fares on Mondays and Fridays by a couple of dollars or by half.

Herald Sun readers aren’t impressed by the proposal however, suggesting the council should instead be focused on scrapping bike lanes, cleaning up the city and subsidising parking.

Lord Mayor Sally Capp wants the state government to cut public transport fares on Monday and Friday. Picture: Mark Stewart

WHAT READERS SAID

‘Cut the price of parking instead’

Michael

How about she cuts the price of parking and gets rid of bike lanes to encourage people to drive in!

The Recalcitrant

Why don’t they reduce the cost of council and private parking in the city? I don’t see why the rest of the state should have to further subsidise the travel of people using the city to benefit a group of people. Why shouldn’t the fares be equally cut for people going to Dandenong or Warrnambool?

Daniel

Why should the rest of the state pick up the bill for something we don’t use? Melbourne council has deep pockets, how about you offer free Myki credit to those who want it and free parking passes to those who don’t have public transport as an option.

Matthew

With poor public transport services in regional areas we drive into the city if we need to access it. Get rid of the bike lanes add more parking options and subsidise the cost of it. Better still maybe the government upgraded the crumbling regional roads and non-existent public transportation infrastructure.

‘Clean up the city, scrap the bike lanes’

Duncan

Sally, the rest of her councillors and the state government have hand-in-hand done their level best to stop us going into the city, now they want us back. Go figure. Bike lanes and congestion everywhere, expensive or no parking and, junkies and injecting rooms, people sleeping on the streets. No thanks.

Christine

Clean up the city Sally and open your eyes to the state it has become, not a train trip I would go on to see.

Adrian

Get rid of homeless beggars. Get rid of graffiti and grime. Provide secure streets. Without that I am not interested.

Jen

I used to feel excited about a trip to the city on the train. Now I feel depressed about it.

The idea walking around a dirty, graffiti laden city with drug affected people wandering around fills me with a keen desire to stay away.

It isn’t the cost of a myki ticket that is the problem. It is the sad, tired state of a once great city that depresses me.

The City of Melbourne has proposed cheaper Myki fares for city commuters. Picture: David Crosling

Gerry

Our city is dirty, uninviting, and very expensive to park if you can find one. Why haven’t you listened to the majority of Victorians, Sally? Get rid of the biggest waste of money — bike lanes — create more cheap or free parking, more entertainment, back off the red tape for local restaurants, cafes, bars, make it family friendly, get rid of the homeless to other facilities to help them. More police, clean up and freshen up Flinders Street Station which looks so bad at the moment. Just get real and do your job, otherwise get lost.

Kim

Want people back in the city? Sure, just:

1) remove Sally Capp from office

2) remove useless bike lanes

3) clean up the streets/graffiti

4) move undesirables into facilities that would give them the help they need

I’ll be on the first tram in, gladly paying full price!

Barry

Do your job Sally! Clean up the filthy city. It’s completely shameful. I wouldn’t voluntarily go into Melbourne if you were offering free helicopter rides.

‘Working from home is what’s preferred’

Scott

So spending millions on bike lanes hasn’t saved the city? Cheaper public transport won’t stop people working from home on Monday and Friday’s — it’s the new normal. People don’t work five days in the office. Instead, they’re supporting local cafes which is great for businesses outside the CBD.

S

Everyone I know is already back and working their hybrid days Sally Capp! Cheap fares will not make people come to the office five days a week. A clean city, safe city, more transport options might do the trick but why are you determined to make everyone come back full time? Have you seen the trains packed with students and workers every morning — it’s very hard to get a seat on a Monday and Friday now. Melbourne Central is also packed to the brim with passengers. Maybe take a walk around the stations or get on a train yourself instead of your limousine to see this miracle.

Chris

Dear me. If this council thinks that offering the office workers a $10 discount is all that needed to pry them away from their home offices every Monday and Friday then they are more out of touch with the realities of WFH than I thought.

David

Love that comment …‘encourage them to come into work’. Seriously, how woke and soft have we become. No wonder Victoria and Australia is going down the gurgler, when an employer cannot get their employee to attend their workplace to undertake their workplace duties.

Megan

Times have changed workers prefer flexible working arrangements. They’re not interested in travelling on an unreliable transport system or sitting in car for lengthy periods of time. They’re also not interested in walking the streets of the CBD which have become a tip.

‘Who’s paying for this?’

Geoff

We have enough debt now. Where will this extra money come from to top up the running costs?

D 48

So here we sit in the regions with very limited public transport and our roads crumbling around us and she wants us to subsidise the travel of city people? Very clever Sally. Make it look like you are doing something while someone else pays the bill.

John

Yeah sure Mayor — and in a state that is technically insolvent who will cover the cost of these reduced fairs exactly?

Warren

Ms Capp is very good and wanting and asking everyone else to pay for her “ideas”. Council could reduce their rates to encourage more businesses, or scrap parking meters for six months or do anything that costs the council money, not everyone else.

Mark

Pigs might fly. The Victorian state government is mired in a mountain of debt so won’t be cutting the cost of anything.

City commuters would be given a discounted fare on Monday and Friday. Picture: Jason Edwards

John

Totally no, why should the rest of commuters subsidise city workers? Sally needs to resign and we need a responsible leader to cut the nonsense and waste at the Melbourne City Council.

Gary K

Oh, so it will miraculously cost less to transport these pampered office workers will it? It’s not as if they’d get the rest of us to subsidise their travel, including those of us who don’t even live in Melbourne, would they?

Pining

The people don’t go into the city is BECAUSE of Sally Capp and the Victorian Labor State Government and what they have DONE to it. Why should everyone else have to pay through their taxes, to hide THEIR errors?

Pistol Pete

Does anyone governing in Victoria have a plan that doesn’t include throwing money away? Capp following the Labor mantra: If it doesn’t work keep throwing money at it.

John

Of course foot traffic, tram and train travel, and cars coming in to the city have dropped over the last couple of years.

Everyone’s on a bike now, right?

Judging by the large amount of tumbleweeds I saw racing through the bike lanes yesterday, I’ve no doubt they’ll have to introduce a bike congestion tax (sorry, not tax, levy) next year to cope with the demand.

‘The city’s too expensive anyway’

Veritas

Just a couple of dollars off the fare! That’s not going to cut it. That tiny saving won’t compensate for the extra dollars needed for lunch. Just make transport free on Mondays and Fridays.

Czar

Public transport needs to be free for students and it should provide better services on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. The cost of a night out for young people is ludicrous. They can’t drive, as Dan only let’s 18 year olds have one passenger, so the designated driver system collapses. Ubers and Taxis cost a fortune, drink prices have sky rocketed thanks to more and more tax increases and public transport is woeful after 11:30pm.

Chris

The $5 saving on a Friday is swallowed by the $8 coffee and $16 sandwich that awaits you when you get in to the CBD.

Emma

Cut the ticket for every day to $4 a day. Make a loss here but get people off the roads. People only work a few days a week in the office and driving in and parking in carparks as the cost is not much different to the tram ticket. This gets cars off the road, and less road maintenance so recoup the loss. Melbourne roads are so much busier now as more and more are driving as they don’t want to pay almost $11 a day. LNP had the right idea in the last election but as usual they voted for the idiot side.

John

When is the state government going to stand up and say, we don’t want you driving into the city anymore? This is clearly the plan. Access by road is impossible, and parking is impossible or incredibly expensive. Clearly the state needs to share their vision with Sally, and perhaps we the tax payer will be slugged with this subsidy. Given the choice, I’d fund this before I put another dollar towards a new bike lane.