As requested, we once again return to State Transit Region 9 in the Eastern Suburbs for our featured bus route this month. Route 314 operates between Bondi Junction and Coogee via Charing Cross and Randwick Junction.
The Cross-Country tram line was one of a very few tram lines in Sydney that did not operate to or from the Sydney CBD. Instead it followed the Coogee line from Coogee Beach to Randwick Junction, then traversed through North Randwick to connect up with the Bronte line in Waverley. From there it travelled along the Bronte line to Bondi Junction, with some services continuing onto Waverley Depot or Bondi Beach. It began operations in 1887 and was electrified in 1902.
In 1954, the decision was made to replace the Cross-Country line with bus services. From the November 14, 1954, Route 314 bus services replaced the line between Bondi Junction and Coogee Beach. It followed a very similar route to the previous tram line, with slight alterations away from tram only corridors in North Randwick and Coogee. Route 314 saw a large increase in frequency upon the opening of the Eastern Suburbs rail line to Bondi Junction in 1979, when it was designated one of the feeder bus services to the new line. This meant it was one of the few routes in Sydney allowing for multi-modal ticketing to be used on the service, which was a first for the time. Since then Route 314 hasn’t undergone many changes, only receiving small deviations from its original 1954 routing and successive timetable changes throughout the decades.
Today Route 314 operates a full time service between 6am and 11pm seven days a week. It has co-ordinated timetabling with route 313 (also between Bondi Junction and Coogee via different route), with each route operating every 30 minute on Weekdays and Saturdays and hourly on Sundays, This allows for a consistent 15/30 minute frequency on the Bondi Junction to Coogee corridor between 8am and 5pm. The service is operated by State Transit from its Waverley depot.
Transport NSW Blog 