SATURDAY marks four years since the light rail formally began carrying passengers between Newcastle Interchange and Pacific Park (Newcastle Beach). I have written before about the high cost of running this service for so few passengers and how Transport for NSW and the council are reluctant to provide detailed running costs.
The article by Michael Parris ('Trips down', Newcastle Herald 9/1) quoted Opal data showing public transport patronage is barely half of what it was before COVID. It shows that the light rail has fallen from 103,000 passengers in 2019 to 61,500 in 2022. I fully believe these figures are correct. What the survey does not obviously take into account is the number of passengers who do not pay to ride on the trams, and as far as I can see there are many.
