Up for a little light reading on why public transport is important, and what needs to be done to make it better? The government is coming out with its Transport & Liveability Statement next week, but in the mean time, the PTUA’s book from 2002 “It’s Time To Move” is now available for download as a PDF.
After all the pressure on the government recently, it’ll be interesting to see how far the TLS goes to fix the problems, or at least resolve the roads vs PT spending imbalance.
PS. A random Melbourne PT fact that occasionally comes up in conversation, to which people respond with surprise, so just thought I’d mention it here: on the top of the fare gates at city railway stations are yellow lights. These flash when concession ticketholders go through, so any inspectors present know which people to ask for concession cards.
6 replies on “It’s time to move”
Except they occasionally flash when normal ticket holders go through as well. *mutter*
They can be reversed to show full fare holders with that lamp, especially at busy stations where there are a lot of students – if a businessman in an expensive suit goes through and the lamp doesn’t flash under such circumstances, you can tell he’s travelling on a concession card.
Nice cameo on Ten News tonight.
Good old Mal Walden was right on Bracksy’s back.
Was Bracksy right in saying that the PTA released it’s response before the report came out?
No — Bracks assumed that because the PTUA media release went out soon after the Statement launch, we’d written it all earlier. Some had been written earlier, based on what we knew from the leaked info. But we checked it thoroughly against the full released Statement.
Bottom line for us is that two-thirds of Melbourne missed out, and will have only hourly or half-hourly buses, which are not good enough to get modal shift, eg to encourage people out of their cars. Thus, traffic congestion is not solved, nor is our reliance on expensive oil.
Agree.
I’m of the believe the Gov’s focus should be on the outer-suburbs.
Also, there needs to be reliable/regular/connecting services till at least midnight.
Terry McCrann has written an excellent article in the Herald Sun newspaper today regarding the Vic Gov/Transurban transport funding botch up.
In it he labels the “Government utterly unfit to continue in office”.
Too Bloody Right.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,19224917%255E36281,00.html