Let me check. Yes, I can get a tram to Docklands. I can get one of several. Some might suggest a tram is a good way to get to Docklands. Well, unless you want to pay extremely high parking fees, it is either a tram or walk.
Check further. Three termini at Docklands, so it rather depends where you want to go. There is a minor terminus for route 30,which come from St Vincents Plaza along Latrobe Street. But it only runs weekdays with a twelve minute service and terminates on the edge of Docklands.
Victoria Harbour has the route 48, plus two other routes, one being the 31 from Hoddle Street, but while it has an ok twelve minute service, it stops at 2.30pm and is only weekdays. The route 11 has a full service, around ten minutes during the day. I conclude, Victoria Harbour is well served and while this Collins Street route is very useful for workers at Victoria Harbour it is not of much use for visitors to Docklands.
To penetrate right into Docklands, you need a tram that goes to Harbour Town/Waterfront City. The free City Circle tram uses Latrobe and Flinders Street, depending whether you are travelling clockwise or not, to get to Harbour Town. It is a twelve minute service but it doesn't start until 10am and finishes at 9pm.
The 70 runs full time along Flinders Street with a daytime service of ten to twelve minutes and the 86 runs along Bourke Street with a daytime weekday service of around eight minutes.
So which to take to get to Harbour Town, or Waterfront City as it is also called?
Coming from home, if it was a weekday, I would opt for an 86 along Bourke Street as the maximum waiting time would be eight minutes, in theory. Weekends, I might be tempted by a 70 and City Circle in Flinders Street, but the CC can get very crowded. Then again, the 86 drops to ten to twelve minute service on weekends.
Sunday night with a half hour service on the two routes is a different matter. Lordy, they arrive five minutes apart. Oh noes, they depart not evenly, but seven minutes apart.
Well, after this research, for tram users who know the system and walk around with live tram times on the phones, it is not such a bad service to Docklands. But for a stranger to our fair city who asks the question how do I get to
Darklands Docklands, sorry, the answer might be a tram in Flinders Street, or Collins Street, or Bourke Street, or Latrobe Street.