How It Was: The Route 509 Hope Street Bus Line Brunswick Victoria.

This is a video of the former Route 509 bus service operated by Melbourne's smallest bus company the Hope Street Bus Line. This video shows a short onboard journey on the former bus service as it was in 2012.
The Hope Street Bus Line stated in 1954 and operated this single route all the way until the Route 509 was shut down on September 30th 2012. Thus servicing the local Hope Street community for over 60 years. The service had a very Italian rural service feeling given much of the local community was made up of Italian migrants who arrived in the 1950s.
The Route 509 as it was in 2012 operated along Hope Street between Sydney Road (Brunswick Victoria) and Melville Road (Brunswick West Victoria) on an every 20 minute frequency between 7am and 7pm weekdays and 7am to 1pm on saturdays with a journey taking 10 minutes for the entire route.
The Hope Street bus service was very much a legacy of Melbourne in 1950's before cars were popular with the general public. The entire route was only about 2 km long making it the shortest bus route in Melbourne. There were defined bus stops in places but it essentially operated as a "Hail and Ride" service used primarily by elderly residents who had lived in the area for decades.
After the closure in September 2012 and after a 4 year gap with no service along Hope Street a new far lower frequency Route 509 was introduced between its former terminus at Melville Road (Brunswick West) and Barkly Square Shopping Centre (Brunswick) further south along Sydney Road than its former terminus. However the new Route 509 operates only once an hour and only between 8.30am and 2.30pm weekdays and 8.30am and 2.30pm on Saturdays.
The new Route 509 offers more destinations but at a much reduced frequency and operation hours that the former Hope Street Bus Line. Essentially it is a limited shopping service for elderly residents of Hope Street Brunswick today. In some ways the former service provided the same roll but with a very local flavour.
The footage in this video was produced in 2012 and captures how it was.
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[@busesaroundmelbourne]

Thanks for uploading. Love the open door, just as it should be! It’s good to see the route reinstated now, but it’ll never be as good as it was in this video. The government will do anything to kill off our small bus operators these days.