Founding "Fatther"
In 1829 Sir Charles Fremantle raised the British flag on a chunk of land on the west coast of what would become Australia. His Swan River Colony eventually took his name. Fremantle is the main port of the metropolitan area of Perth. One of its oldest buildings, dating from 1831, is here illustrated ...
... with a recognition of the edifice's well chosen name! Fremantle also has some stunning new buildings ...
... including the intriguing Maritime Museum.
Lovely Linguistic Lake
Joondalup Lake is in the north of the greater Perth area. It has a strenuous (for fbb at least!) walk of 16k (10 miles) right round its picturesque edge.
The lake gives its name to the regional retail centre for the north of the Perth conurbation.
Fremantle, Joondalup and Perth itself have something omnibological in common.
All three have cats! Maybe they would be better printed acronymically as CATs?
Despite the name, Mr Tubbles shows no interest in recognising antipodean felines.
Mr Tubbles has currently annexed Mrs fbb's recliner chair and, when deposed, stoically refuses other similar chairs in fbb mansions, but gazes accusingly at Mrs fbb until she moves out,
The free services in central perth have a generic route number 203 but no published timetable.
There is a route map showing all Perth's CATs ...
... and fbb decided to look at the BLUE CAT.
The aim was to match the departure list with the route map (above). The route runs from Kings Park (map, bottom left) ...
... but with a lavish enquiry office with real people and lots of timetable leaflets.
The CAT then purrs to Barrack Square ...
The bus route than forms a large rectangular "hook" round the city's centre, terminating, via the train station, at the other bus station, known at the Perth Busport. It opened in 2016 and the picture below was taken as the general bits and pieces were being finished; which is doubtless why there is no human and no leaflets at the information desk
So the blue CAT runs every 15 minutes from end to end but with different start and finish times depending on the day of the week.
In the evenings the CATs do not serve Kings Park but run between the two bus stations only. fbb suspects that the "first trip" at the bottom of the above graphic should read 8.03 pm as it is the evening service!
The CATs are not universally popular with the politicians (who ultimately pay the bill), as seen in this snippet about the Fremantle service.
And There's More
The area is large.
So, To Summarise ...fbb has no idea about the finance, but there will be substantial "subsidy"; clearly Transperth does NOT follow "the commercial model"!
Yep, the whole of central Perth, for example, is one big FTZ. In case you haven't twigged, that is a Free Travel Zone.
The FTZ also has spectacular bus stop "pods" ...
... but the CATs are, horribly, cluttered with Contravision!
But surely, cheap fares and the FTZ must contribute to a reduction of car traffic and thus an overall reduction in the cost to Society.
It is definitely what is needed in UK urban areas and, undoubtedly, would be cheap in an overall cost basis.
As things stand no government is going to have the guts to do it, once the £2 maximum schemes run out of money.
Pity!
The next blog was unplanned, UN considered and unwritten when fbb pressed to button last evening.#
Next "No Idea Yet" blog : Thursday 3rd November
Interesting that the route called "Yellow cat" is operated with a silver bus with a black cat on the side. It seems that assigning vehicles to specific routes doesn't work, whichever side of the world you happen to be on!
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