TT #153: Tram 78

The 78 tram is a rare thing in Melbourne. It’s one of just two fixed rail routes that do not eventually go into the CBD. Instead it provides a tangential connection between many radial train and tram lines in Melbourne’s inner east and south-east. And, like Route 82, its non-CBD cousin in the inner-west, it rates low in the pecking order when it comes to service upgrades and new trams. Both routes have reputations for slowness, though 78 is dead straight, serving just two streets of ecclesiastical names.

The 78 tram is locally significant. It cannot be separated from the life of Chapel St in Windsor and Prahran. And it passes through diverse neighbourhoods, from 1800s housing to modern, ethnic to Anglo, high to low income, chick to shabby, smooth to gritty. Extremes coexist around here; people can range from being there to be seen to being there to inject. But most are just doing what regular people do in a city.   

While Chapel and Church are now single route streets, it wasn’t always thus. For many years the 78 was not a full time tram route. Part of the time services ran as the 79 which was like the 78 except it missed the bottom bit to turn off to St Kilda beach instead. The 79 was discontinued in 2014 with the 78 made full-time. Go back even earlier to the 1980s and you also had the 77 which had come from Flinders St via Swan St before heading south via Chapel. The 77 was discontinued in 1986, apparently due to low patronage. Between the three routes (two running at any one time) Chapel St especially likely saw more trams then than now. 

The 78 intersects (at right angles) with more radial tram routes than almost any other tram due to its geometry. Possibly half of Melbourne’s tram routes are one change away from the 78. It is also the last significant north-south connection across Melbourne’s south-east until the 16 tram. This makes the 78 of key network importance if we valued non-CBD and short cross-suburban trips in planning (spoiler: We don’t). 

The 78 properly intersects with trains at two places. These include the minor East Richmond station (which people joke about their train not stopping at) and Windsor on the Sandringham line (parallel to this portion of the 78). The 78 passes near the Mernda and Hurstbridge lines (nearest station North Richmond) and the Frankston, Cranbourne and Pakenham lines (nearest station South Yarra). These are not convenient interchanges due to walking distances however they would still be done by some people. 

Service levels 

Route 78 is one of the least commuter-oriented tram routes. Unlike others there are no clear ‘inbound’ and ‘outbound’ directions. It may act as a feeder for some stations but it is likely faster for people to walk to stations near it. Timetables reflect this non-commuter focus. Weekday peak frequencies are typically 12-15 minutes while interpeak intervals are a more even 12 minutes. Early morning weekday headways are 30 minutes while evening service drops off to the standard 20 minute headway after about 7:30 to 8pm. 

Saturday service levels are quite similar to weekdays except that the midday frequency is 15 rather than 12 minutes.  This does not harmonise with trains that typically run every 20 minutes. 

On Sundays frequencies are every 30 minutes before about 10:30am and after 7:30pm. Between those times they are every 15 minutes except for a short transition in the morning where service is nearer 20 minutes. 

New Years typically sees 24 hour service on trains and trams. 78 and 82 are the main exceptions. Being non-radial routes they are not seen as supporting the festivities in the CBD so do not run. 

The service difference between the 78 and St Kilda Rd routes (with basic 12 min weekday/15 min weekend/ 20 min Mon – Sat evening and 30 min Sun evening service) is small.  Nevertheless small things are enough to make the 78 the second least frequent full-time tram route on the network, beating only the 82.  

Potential and Advocacy

The 78 could be more than it is. At no time does it run a turn-up-and-go frequency. This is important if the route is to become a feeder to the numerous routes and lines it intersects. It, and its stops are a long way from being DDA compliant. Also travel speeds are slow. 

What about the route itself? Could it be connected better with the rest of the network? 

I mentioned before how the 78 passes near but doesn't connect to some major train lines. Regretably rail geometry isn't favourable in the south-east; a new station at Chapel St in the short gap between South Yarra and Hawksburn is highly unlikely. Calls for a South Yarra stop on  the under construction Metro Tunnel have gone unheeded and even if it was built it wouldn't necessarily be nearer the 78 than the existing South Yarra Station.

So if the train won't move for the tram, could the tram move for the train? The most promising would appear to be an 800 metre extension of the northern end to terminate at North Richmond Station (which would also pass two supermarkets). This would greatly improve local connectivity as it would save the need to board the 12 or 109 for a couple of stops. There is a short overlap of routes but in a dense urban area this is acceptable given the reduced transfer penalties for passengers. 

More radically it may be possible to join the 78 to the 30 to provide an L-shaped circumferential route. An issue with this is how it ties in with other things you might wish to do with the tram network. I mentioned before the potential benefits of deleting Route 30 and rerouting the 12 to provide better connections to the northern part of the CBD and to Southern Cross Station from it. If you did that you might just terminate the 78 at North Richmond Station and call it job done. Ultimately though there does need to be a direct east-west tram across the CBD's northern fringe (including along a section of Victoria St that has no tram lines) with a terminus at North Melbourne or Arden station. A future upgraded and extended L-shaped 78 may be part of the solution here. 

Prahran MP Sam Hibbins has started a campaign on improving the 78 tram with a letter to Minister Carroll. Results from a survey also (with an unspecified number of participants) appear on his website. Frequency was the highest priority for improvement, closely followed by speed. New trams and level access stops were next. 24 hour service was least important.  As for why people caught the 78, the top two reasons were shopping and meeting friends. Work was relatively unimportant though it's hard to draw conclusions as we do not know when the survey was conducted and there has been widespread working from home. As for when people caught it, weekends were more than twice as popular as so-called peak hours, with midday also popular. 

As well as being the local MP for the southern end of the 78 tram, Mr Hibbins is also the Victorian Greens transport spokesperson. Under his watch the Victorian Greens has weakened its interest in  improved public transport, especially in the suburbs. 

As an example the party presented quite strong service policies (including for buses) in its 2018 campaign. These have hardly been spoken about since. In 2020 the Victorian Greens proposed a 'Green New Deal' that boosted trains, trams and cycling but ignored buses and walking. The urban and political geography of this modal bias is interesting; trams and commuter cycling are more prevalent in affluent Green-held seats while the ignored buses and walking are the only non-driving transport options in many (mostly Labor) outer and lower income areas. It would seem that Greens transport policy emphasis is increasingly to an inner suburban elite with little to offer others, especially in outer suburbs.  

2021 saw a further shift to favour an even more elite (and likely price-insensitive) group. That year almost all their energies in transport went towards encouraging electric car driving by participating in a tax revolt-style campaign against a modest EV user charge introduced by the Andrews government. The EV focus has distanced Victorian Greens from public and active transport advocates who might otherwise find their policies attractive. Individual Greens MPs have supported some public transport service upgrades in their seats (Tim Read 505 bus, Ellen Sandell 402 bus, now Sam Hibbins with 78 tram) but they have offered little critique of the bigger picture in transport despite well-documented shortcomings of the current Labor state government they could exploit (eg an under-emphasis on service aspects).  

With a tough campaign coming up in 2022 it will be interesting to see we see a renewed interest from all parties in public transport service as key to making the network more useful and improving peoples lives. There's benefits for all parties in 'switching to service'. Labor could sell it as realising the benefits of their infrastructure program, Liberals could use it as part of a critique of Labor while Greens could reconnect with potential supporters in transport that their recent emphases has cast off. More on why this is important here. 

Conclusion

Current policy settings towards trams have been relatively stagnant. 'Big Builds' on the roads, on the trains and in the suburbs are more politically fashionable. Small infrastructure and service upgrades are much less so. Thus we haven't seen significant tram service upgrades for years. Trams continue to be delayed severely by cars with which they (unfortunately) share most of their routes with. There are some DDA stop upgrades but the Auditor-General found that the pace is slow relative to what is required. The 78 exemplifies these issues more than most other tram routes.  

Victoria's political geography doesn't always help trams. Most marginal seats are concentrated in outer eastern and southern regions a long way from trams (2022 Vic state election guide here). It is in these plus some regional areas that the main Labor / Coalition battles will be fought. 

However 78 is somewhat of an exception. It serves at least two seats that cannot be ignored by two if not three parties. Notably Prahran. Boundary changes have this as favouring Labor (despite having a sitting Green MP in Sam Hibbins) but Antony Green still says that he's still in with a chance. The Liberals have higher support here than in the north and even won Prahran in 2010. So their voters' preferences could be critical. 

Richmond, through which the northern end of the 78 passes, is also somewhat marginal. While the redistribution again strengthens Labor slightly, the retirement of Richard Wynne (the current Labor MP) means that there's no established name for Labor to draw on, weakening their position. Hence this too will likely be on the Greens priority campaign list. 

With these battles looming you may well be hearing more about the 78 tram in the upcoming state election campaign. 

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