Dear cbraphysco, I am not saying that your request for ‘decent bus services’ is wrong – but typically buses run every 30mins in the suburbs, and more frequently between central ‘hubs’.
They start early in the day and finish late at night. They run 7-days a weeks (okay – somewhat shortened on Weekends/Public Holidays).
I commonly see negative feedback as ‘need more services, more often’. I don’t understand what that means when they are so frequent.
When was ‘…as we used to have’?
In your opinion, what do you want to see that is not currently provided? e.g. Should buses provide a ‘front-door pick-up service’.
I really want to understand what is so terribly wrong with the buses.

There seems to be an assumption that people only travel on buses to and from work, with no need to get around at other times and no need to go to several different places each day, as many mothers do in dropping off kids and picking them up, taking them to sports or other activities and doing the shopping. This is real life.

It is also assumed that people are public servants so do not need to get to work early in the morning or late at night. You may not have noticed that there are people working in hospitality and trades who have to rely on cars because the bus services don’t cater for them. If they’re kids with part-time jobs, their parents have to drop them off and pick them up which defeats the purpose of teaching them independence.

Sydney was so much better for transport, but there’s much I love about Canberra. I just hate the poor public transport services, especially the need to change from buses to trams and back again depending on where you’re going. It makes for lengthy time-consuming trips which are often not worth the effort.