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Toxic Custard newsletter transport

#EWLink’s real cost to Victorians: Could easily be $10b for stage 1

This article by The Age’s Josh Gordon last week raises a really good point about the East West Link Stage 1 that needs to be remembered: The up-front cost of $2 billion contributed by the State is not the total actual cost to Victorians. It’s also not the construction cost — long thought to be  ... [More]

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Geek Melbourne Toxic Custard newsletter

Google Streetview car up close

Last night this Google Streetview car was cruising along William Street outside Flagstaff station. The driver waved back as I took the photo. It’ll be interesting to see how long the photos it was (well, may have been) gathering take to get online. Last time it was over a year, but from what I hear  ... [More]

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Melbourne Toxic Custard newsletter

Olympic Doughnuts: new sign hopefully less trademark-infringing

As has been noted before, Olympic Doughnuts survived the rebuild of Footscray station. This was apparently so important that the Premier made special mention of it when the new facility opened: The other area that I’ll make a brief comment on is I was out at Footscray this morning as part of the Regional Rail  ... [More]

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Toxic Custard newsletter transport

Deer Park PSOs

This is Deer Park station. (Superb pic snapped a few years ago by my friend Tony.) And this is the new pod for Protective Services Officers at Deer Park station. According to the official list, PSOs are now deployed there. Marcus Wong’s PSO tracking spreadsheet says they started there on July 1st. Deer Park of  ... [More]

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Photos Toxic Custard newsletter transport

Photos from last week

The hi fi box was a big hit with my niece (and nephew) Having obtained a government-provided “boarding pass” (they were handed out with some MXs — I missed out but managed to get one via Kev, who saved it for me), I went searching for the airport rail link. Strangely enough it wasn’t listed  ... [More]

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Geek Home life music Toxic Custard newsletter

Hi fi part 2: the kitchen radio

After buying the new livingroom hi-fi, my thinking was I want a device for the kitchen that does DAB+ for digital radio (eg music such as Double-J without relying on the vagaries of the internet connection) and can also do AirPlay (eg for music from iTunes on the Mac). Devices that do both DAB+ and  ... [More]

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transport

Level crossings: Which are funded to be removed, which are promised?

Updates: September 2017 | November 2018 | November 2020 Jump straight to the list I’ve been trying to sort out the status of all the level crossings from the various lists. Some are fully funded, others are funded for planning, and some are merely promises/pledges from the politicians. I ended up going back to the  ... [More]

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Photos from ten years ago Toxic Custard newsletter

Old photos from September 2004

Another in my series of posts of ten year old photos: some snaps from September 2004… I don’t seem to have many of interest this month, but oh well. Collins Street and Elizabeth Street, a snap not used in this blog post. Trams were turning around here for a special event up ahead for Olympians  ... [More]

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Photos Toxic Custard newsletter

Some pics from the past week

Lego MCG at Myer toy department, Emporium If you try to steal this tram seat, it could get messy. Flowerpots. Many flowerpots. At Gazi, the modern Greek restaurant in the old Herald Sun building. Lots of these ads around the place at the moment. What is it? Some kind of big survey thing run by  ... [More]

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transport

Govt flyer sent to #Bentleigh voters missing any mention of their biggest project: #EWLink

Letters that arrive in anonymous envelopes and then turn out to be party political propaganda are not my favourite thing. This one from the State Liberals showed up the other day. The Liberals’ signature project, perhaps the most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the state, is the East West road tunnel — around $18  ... [More]

Categories
Politics and activism transport

Labor pledges to grade-separate Bentleigh level crossing

As I walked to the station this morning there seemed to be an unusually long tailback of cars approaching the level crossing. I found a gaggle of reporters at the station, and shortly afterwards state opposition leader Dan(iel) Andrews showed up, with public transport spokesperson Jill Hennessy and local Bentleigh candidate Nick Staikos, to announce  ... [More]

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Toxic Custard newsletter TV

Why does the government want to kill Community TV?

It takes a special kind of cunning to first nobble the National Broadband Network, that if fully implemented might have been able to reliably deliver realtime high-definition video into homes… …and then cancel community television licences, and demand those stations go online instead. This seems like a bad idea in many ways, not the least  ... [More]