Couriermail Column 31 March 2011

[SteelPan]

Where did the clean, comfortable commute disappear to?

Jane Fynes-Clinton

PARKING in the city is madness - everything tells us this: Signs, the council, ads, enormous parking station fees and the threat of even larger fines.

So, when the city beckons, it is by public transport we must scurry. And, if it has been a while, the mode of journeying can be something of an eye-opener.

I commuted on the train every day in my high school years 12 stops in and 12 stops out for more than 1000 days.

Forty-eight minutes were spent within a smelly silver diesel train or, in the early days, sometimes a red rattler.

Then super-duper electric trains swooped in and almost noiselessly, impressively, took their place.

As a student, I travelled on a free pass. I gave up my seat for adults, partly because it was good manners, partly because my school would have had a pink fit if I didn't and partly because my free rail pass said I must.

Most of the time there was enough room for us to claim a seat.

We were a mostly safe and happy rail-travelling community.

My relationship with train travel dribbled over after school finished, but now I am a visitor to a place I once inhabited.

And, while the station names have stayed the same, the landscape has changed dramatically.

On this day I have driven my car quite a distance because trains to my nearest station are spaced inconveniently apart, despite having a generous number of commuters living nearby, and those that do come are packed to their curved ceilings.

Rail buses have not filled the void.

I struggle to find a place to put my car in the park 'n' ride. Commuters have parked their cars hither and thither in desperation.

After stalking two designated car parks and contemplating having to drive in and fork out for a spot in a city car parking station after all, I have luck in a third.

The packed car park was a portent of what was to come.

I ask the bored-looking woman at the station window for a return paper ticket.

"You will have to have a single, love," the lady says in a monotone. "We don't do returns any more. Didn't you know? You'd be better off with a go card, but it's your dollar."

As an irregular train user, without an ongoing, regular need for a ticket to ride, I say I do not think a go card is my go.

The woman behind the glass and grill is unimpressed, despite not knowing whether I am a local or a visitor.

I wonder how the tourists we are so wanting to come our way feel when they are faced with such presumptuousness and sour-pussiness.

Then comes the sting.

In anyone's money, train travel even within and around our own corner of the state is expensive.

It would come close to being as costly as running a car over the same distance.

We pay a lot to help the planet, to not be trapped in traffic gridlock and to hopefully make our meetings and appointments on time.

Other costs are high.

We sacrifice our privacy, our space and our freedom to schedule our own leaving and arriving.

The Government promises to spread the rail web, linking the community extremities to the city heart.

It makes good sense, just as it makes good sense in every congested city.

But it seems to work better and cheaper in other cities, no matter what the Queensland Government says.

It seems strange to spread something that is not working as reliably or serving existing communities as well as it might.

Oh well, I console myself, at least I will be able to use the travel time to do some work.

If I were driving, it would be time wasted.

As the train pulls up, it is immediately noticeable how dirty it is, with street art scrawl and general grime on its dull silver shell.

It matches the station it pulls into and both look like no one really cares for them.

There is not a spare seat in the house, even a squishy one.

A person reluctantly moves his bag from a seat to make room for a stranger.

I stand in the aisle, in close quarters to others like cows in a cattle truck.

Thoughts of using the time constructively fly figuratively out the fixed-pane window.

A couple of Generation Y-ers sit obstructively on the floor.

A person at very close quarters smells of their day.

A man is telling his seatmates about his fishing trip to the Gulf.

My half of the carriage hears his every word, every breath, every off-colour anecdote.

We all look anywhere but at him or each other, standing as if we are stuffed in an elevator.

Fishing man moves to get off at a stop.

"Thank God for that," the man who holds the same pole as me mutters.

At each stop, a screechy beeping hastens when the doors are about to close.

The rhythmic movement along the track is the only relaxing thing on the journey.

There are too many of us packed in a small space and the exchange of passengers as the screechy doors open and close is stressful.

My turn comes. With a hiss and a beep, I am released.

I walk off the train and into the drizzle.

fclintonj@optusnet.com.au

(Source Couriermail)

[SteelPan]

My only comment re this column - given the writer has given their email contact, perhaps they could be asked to consider a BOT membership - if they do not already hold one!