Canberrans have taken to light rail with the city's trams carrying almost four times more passengers than Newcastle's.
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Opened in late April, Canberra light rail services got off to a zipping start.
There was an average of 106,279 trips taken per week in the opening month.
To contrast, there was about 118,000 trips overall on Newcastle light rail in April.
The difference in passenger numbers is perhaps a reflection of the city's populations.
More than 400,000 people live in the nation's capital, compared to about 165,000 in the Newcastle local government area.
Or perhaps it is more a reflection of the difference in length of the two light rail lines and where they go.
Canberra has a 12-kilometre line with 13 stops, more than four times longer than the 2.7 kilometre line in Newcastle with six.
But, it's not so straight forward.
Topics has learned the Canberra trams were free to ride for the first month.
FREE! For a month!
When people actually had to pay for the service, passenger numbers tumbled by almost 30,000 in the first week to 77,668.
They increased to 83,862 the week after.
Despite the dip, Transport Canberra said it was happy with patronage levels six weeks after the launch of the line.
"Transport Canberra is very pleased light rail is so popular and we are already hitting our 2021 business case passenger numbers," a spokesperson told local media this week.
Business case?...
Topics has heard those words before.
Ah, yes, NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance in February on a Newcastle light rail extension.
"In terms of any future [extension], we've done the work in terms of the strategic business case," he said at a press conference when launching the line.
"That's just being polished off at the moment and away we go from there."
Topics understands the polishing has now concluded. However, it is not clear when, if ever, the shiny business case will emerge from Macquarie Street.
Meanwhile, detailed plans are afoot for an 11-kilometre extension of Canberra's line, extending further into the city's suburbs.
"On this route, people will be able to easily access major educational institutions, retail and entertainment precincts, major events and employment hubs," Transport Canberra's website boasts.
Newy, Lake Mac among 'hottest' places in AUS
An email dropped in the Herald inbox this week titled: "Newcastle and Lake Macquarie are officially the hottest places in NSW, according to new national data."
We expected to read about some sort of weather study, but it turns about they were in a top ten "sexiest" places in Australia list.
The 'data' that determined the list was where the most products had been ordered from through Lovehoney, which describes itself as a "global sexual happiness retailer".
Good grief.
