Sydney’s point-to-point ticketing system sucks. The prices of tickets suck.
Melbourne has no off-peak discount, and although the most expensive Opal trip ($16) is more expensive than the most expensive Myki trip ($10), the cheapest Opal trip is a lot cheaper. Sydney’s caps kick in faster, too. In Sydney, there’s no need to pre-purchase a “pass” as you need to with Myki – the cap just kicks in as soon as you travel enough.
The fact that the fastest way to get most places 1km away in the CBD is to walk, sucks.
That’s true of Melbourne as well. I used to commute from Flemington to the CBD daily, and walking was a more reliable way to get to work and back. Making a city more walkable is a noble goal.
Sydney might have better coverage to Melbourne out in the suburbs, and certainly have better busses out there. But again the ticketing shenanigans negates a lot of this. Unless you have a periodical ticket (weekly/monthly), there is no flexibility. You paid a fair to North Ryde? You’re going to North Ryde. You can’t change your mind. You can’t decide to hop off at Woolies on the way home and get back on. Your ticket is valid for just the journey you initially paid for. Did I mention it sucks?
You obviously haven’t actually been in Sydney for over a decade.
It sure is nice to hop on a train to Sydney Airport, though. Pity it costs $25 or something to do it.
What? It’s under $20 for a trip from the airport to the city. There’s also a weekly cap on the surcharge that kicks in really quickly, so if you need to go to the airport more than once in a week, you’re effectively paying regular train fares after the first day.
Going to the airport in Melbourne with a two hour Myki fare plus SkyBus is substantially more expensive than using the airport train in Sydney, and there’s no fare cap on SkyBus for people who need to travel to the airport multiple times in a week.
As someone with apartments in both cities, these constant, “Sydney sucks,” rants full of misinformation really don’t paint a good picture of Melbourne.
You can use Suica/Pasmo to pay for things from vending machines and some convenience stores in Tokyo. Hong Kong isn’t the only place where you can use public transport cards for payment.