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| So do you walk from Helensvale to Movieword? |
Last week, TransLink finally introduced a "go card for visitors" with a visitor guide. Then this week, TransLink confusingly released the SEEQ card, which BrizCommuter can only assume is the same product? As is to be expected from SE Queensland's incompetent transit authority, the result is so half-baked they may as well have not bothered. So, what is wrong with the go card for visitors / SEEQ card?:
Firstly, the price is ridiculous. A 3 day card costs a whopping $79, and a 5 day card costs an extortionate $129. Now this does include Airtrain, and discounts at many attractions (although you can get better discounts on the back of supermarket receipts and on the internet). Even removing the cost of Airtrain, still results in the card costing approximately $16-20 per day, which is far more than the average visitor is likely to spend on public transport. In comparison, in Melbourne using the excellent Myki card, the maximum daily all zones travel is capped at $11.08 on weekdays, and is just $3.30 at weekends. In Paris, the Paris Visite card (which also include access to/from airports and outer zones) is $22 cheaper than the SEEQ card for the 3 day product, and $60 cheaper than the SEEQ card for the 5 day product! It is quite obvious that TransLink see tourists as cash cows, rather than actually trying to encourage public transport use. Maybe TransLink's slogan should be changed to TransLink - promoting car hire use since 2012!
The go card for visitors also suffers from very poor Visitor Guides. In particularly the "Top things to see and do with go card" sections have the following issues:
- A poor design - is Mt Coot-tha Lookout really located on Queen Street?
- Misleading information - forgets to mention laughable 75 minute Sunday frequency of the 471 to Mt Coot-tha, fails to mention the lack of weekend free City Loop bus, and even claims that "trains run regularly between Nambour and Brisbane City".
- Fails to mention how to get to major SE Queensland tourist attractions such as Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Australia Zoo, various Gold Coast theme parks, and Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.
- Incorrect information - shows Fortitude Valley Train Station by its old name Brunswick Street Train Station, and states "from Pacific Fair bus interchange catch a 702 to Burleigh Heads when the 702 does not serve Pacific Fair (see screen shots below).
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| Visitor Guide |
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Try again TransLink!
Visitor guides:
I'm still trying to get my head around point 4 in the Brisbane guide:
ReplyDelete"Catch the 202 bus from
Elizabeth Street (Stop 81)
stopping at City Gardens,
Alice Street. From South
Bank take a picturesque
journey on the river aboard
a CityCat to Riverside or
QUT Gardens Point."
So I catch a bus from Elizabeth St to the Botanic Gardens, then cross the river to South Bank (how? Goodwill Bridge?), then catch a CityCat back across the river to QUT (which I already had to walk through to get to South Bank)?