Is it possible to get fewer ticks on the GenomeAxisTrack? Example:

library(Gviz)
library(biomaRt)

# Create mart
mart <- biomaRt::useMart(
  biomart = "ENSEMBL_MART_ENSEMBL",
  dataset = "hsapiens_gene_ensembl",
  host = "dec2013.archive.ensembl.org")

# Create transcript track
biomartTrack <- Gviz::BiomartGeneRegionTrack(
  filters = list(
    ensembl_transcript_id = "ENST00000420055"),
  biomart = mart)

# Create axis track
axisTrack <- Gviz::GenomeAxisTrack()
Gviz::displayPars(axisTrack) <- list(
  add53 = TRUE,
  add35 = TRUE,
  labelPos = "below",
  cex = 1,
  col = "black", # line color
  fontcolor = "black",
  lwd = 1,
  littleTicks = TRUE
)

# Plot
Gviz::plotTracks(
  list(biomartTrack, axisTrack))

I do want to place the ticks below the axis, but I want fewer of them. As you can see it doesn't look good with this many.

You don't have control down to that level, I'm afraid. In your example the problem seems to be that your overall plot width is extremely narrow. Guess your only options are reducing the font size or providing a wider plotting region.

Florian