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'Without a car, you're stuck': Tasmanians speak out on getting around the island in 2026
From the Huon Valley to the East Coast, residents say inadequate public transport leaves them with no real choice but to drive, and the costs are mounting.
How we reported this
Ask almost anyone living outside Hobart's CBD whether they could manage without a car, and the answer comes back the same way every time: not a chance. Across Tasmania in mid-2026, the gap between the island's tourism-brochure image of scenic drives and wild coastlines and the grinding daily reality of transport poverty is wider than ever, and community members from Geeveston to St Helens are saying so out loud.
The issue has urgency right now because fuel costs have crept back above $2.10 per litre at most rural bowsers, Metro Tasmania has flagged service reductions on six regional routes from September, and the Liberal government's transport budget, released in May, allocated just $4.2 million to regional bus services statewide, a figure advocacy groups say falls well short of what's needed. Against that backdrop, the Spirit of Tasmania ferries remain the only practical freight and passenger link to the mainland for many families, with peak-season cabin fares now exceeding $600 return for a couple.
Life beyond the bus route
In the Huon Valley, where the closest Metro Tasmania stop to some properties sits more than 40 kilometres from Hobart's Macquarie Street office precinct, the arithmetic of car ownership is brutal. Residents around Geeveston and Cygnet describe spending upwards of $400 a month on fuel alone. The Huon Valley Community Transport Service, a volunteer-run scheme operating out of Huonville, logs roughly 1,200 trips per quarter, but its waiting list for regular bookings has blown out to three weeks in some cases, according to the organisation's own published figures from April this year.
On the East Coast, the story is similar. Communities along the Tasman Highway between Bicheno and St Helens have no scheduled bus service at all. Residents who cannot drive, elderly people, those with disabilities, young people who cannot afford a licence, rely almost entirely on neighbours or community volunteers. The Break O'Day Council submitted a formal request to the state government in March asking for a pilot dial-a-ride program modelled on schemes trialled in regional Victoria. No response has been made public.
The Spirit of Tasmania terminal at Devonport remains the main gateway for people travelling with vehicles from Melbourne's Station Pier. Passenger numbers on the Bass Strait crossing were up 9 per cent in the March quarter compared with the same period in 2025, according to TT-Line's quarterly update, driven partly by tourists and partly by Tasmanians avoiding the cost of freight alternatives. But the crossing is not cheap: a standard vehicle plus two passengers in a private cabin for a peak crossing in January costs close to $900 one way, a figure that prices out many lower-income families.
What the data and community voices are saying
Tasmania's car ownership rate sits at approximately 740 registered vehicles per 1,000 people, one of the highest in the country and a figure that demographers at the University of Tasmania's College of Arts, Law and Education have linked directly to the absence of viable alternatives rather than any preference for driving. The Hobart Not-for-Profit Housing Alliance raised the transport question again at its June forum at the Salamanca Arts Centre, arguing that transport costs function as a hidden poverty trap: workers who cannot afford a car in good repair struggle to hold jobs outside walkable Hobart suburbs like Battery Point or South Hobart.
The government points to the Tasmanian Integrated Transport Strategy 2030, released in 2023, as its framework for improvement. Critics note the strategy contains broad objectives but no funded commitment to restore the rural bus routes cut between 2020 and 2024.
For people who need to get around the island now, the practical calculus is unchanged: budget for a reliable second-hand vehicle, factor in CTP insurance, which runs roughly $680 annually for a standard sedan registered in regional Tasmania, and treat any bus or ferry timetable as a supplement, not a solution. Community transport registers in Devonport, Launceston and Kingston exist and are worth a call. But the hard truth most Tasmanians already know is that the island, for all its beauty, has not yet been built for those who cannot or will not drive.