The vice-chancellor of my alma mater, The University of New South Wales, reckons that poor public transport is limiting the university’s “ability to recruit students from lower socio-economic backgrounds”. UNSW is the only university in Sydney not serviced by a direct train route. I lived in the west and spent more than an hour each way to get to uni.

A daily trip to further my education involved: a fifteen-minute walk from my front door to local railway station. Wait for train, given it is peak-hour platform is crowded. If lucky get first train, if not let the sardine can proceed and hope the next one is not crowded. Take twenty-minute train to Central Station. Wait in line at Eddy Ave to board the UNSW Express. If lucky line is short and busses plentiful, if not line stretches into Belmore Park. Read, listen to MP3 player, chat to fellow student or the occasional homeless person, offer him/her a piece of chewing gum. Take bus. If lucky find a seat and hold position until the 30-minute bus ride along ANZAC Pde is over. If not stand, hold onto something (or someone) or submit to the laws of physics. Arrive on High Street enter New South and get coffee from Coffee Cart to numb the experience. Repeat process at the end of the day (minus the coffee).

Yes it was experience, we all did it, it did it for five years. The price of quality education. Never once did I drive into uni. The traffic is bad and then there is the issue of parking. If we did not want live at home with the folks and use the train/bus combo we moved in with friends or partners closer to uni and walked or cycled or bussed.

I think his assertion that UNSW was too hard to reach for many aspiring students from the western suburbs is ill founded. What does he mean by hard? Is it physical or economical? I do not think it was physically hard to get to UNSW. You get used to the process after about three years then its time to graduate! Depending on your frame of mind, if you want an education, then you do what you can to get it. Even traveling for over an hour to get to a university not serviced by a direct train line (but one that is close to a beach).

But the process is expensive. While our fellow students from USyd or UTS had only to purchase a train ticket we needed to get a bus ticket on top of it. An alternative to make UNSW accessible to students from the west, and in fact all students is to offer the UNSW Express bus service free of charge to all. It will encourage more people using public transport and lessen the financial burden.

Or the other alternative is building a tramline from Central Station to UNSW. Am sure this has been suggested in the past, and I read it has been mentioned again. And like all such proposals it usually only rears its head during election time. So I do not see a tramline happening anytime soon. A simple alternative is to make the Express Bus route free, if not subsidise it.