One of the promises of the orbital Smartbus routes was to cater for crosstown travel. The Bracks Government’s 2006 Meeting Our Transport Challenges document said this: The Government will invest $1.4 billion to create a crosstown transport network for Melbourne. Major new SmartBus routes, supported by improved local bus services, will connect with the rail ... [More]
Now that the new Noble Park station (aka “Area 3” of the Caulfield to Dandenong “skyrail”) is open, what of the rest of the project? It’s moving fast. “Area 2” in the Clayton area is coming along, and a rail line closure from the 3rd to the 15th of April will allow construction workers to ... [More]
Monday was Labour Day, and I went for a long morning walk. Well okay, I caught a 703 bus from Bentleigh to Centre Road/Huntingdale Road — despite the PTV app incorrectly claiming it wasn’t running most of the day. Then I walked to Huntingdale Station, then west along North Road, and gradually back home. Here ... [More]
Britain is a place many Australians look to with fondness, with many of us having relatives there, and it being a top destination for Australian tourists. As a result, London is sometimes seen as a city to emulate, especially as our cities get bigger. Our current crop of public transport managers certainly have links to ... [More]
Smartbus was devised in the dying days of the Kennett government originally as a mostly hardware-based upgrade: traffic priority, real-time information at stops, distinctive bus stop signs and buses. Originally it didn’t include service upgrades (which sparked derision from the PTUA at the time), but this was changed early on during the Bracks government, with ... [More]
Ten years ago I was surviving (somehow) with no hot water, after the water heater packed-up. The solar system I had installed to replace it is, thankfully, still going nicely. Anyway, it’s the last day of Feb – just time for some old photos from ten years ago – another in my series of rehashed ... [More]
On Friday, The Age reported that Infrastructure Australia has put out a report that asks what sort of city we’d like to have in 2046: The Expanded Low Density scenario – similar to Los Angeles – sprawling, dispersed suburbs, even more car-dominated than today The Centralised High Density scenario – similar to New York City ... [More]
All of us have data being captured about us all the time. For many of us that includes Myki travel data (though even that is tiny compared to the myriad of information captured by our smartphones). Mostly for me it’s the drudgery of everyday work commuting, but every so often there’s something of interest. Crosstown ... [More]
Definitions can be important when looking at things such as statistics. A simple comparison of city populations can result in quite different figures. For example, what is the population of Seattle? The Wikipedia article opens: Seattle is a seaport city on the west coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, ... [More]
For two weeks the Cranbourne/Pakenham line was shut between Westall and Dandenong, allowing construction crews to complete the ramps and connect the first section of skyrail to the line. It re-opened on Thursday. I and other stakeholders got a preview on Wednesday, but we weren’t allowed to take photos inside (because construction work around the ... [More]
A year ago today, I travelled to Pinewood shopping centre in Mount Waverley for the second time that month. The first visit (where I blogged my trip home) was for a medical consultation for a lump in my arm. The second visit was to have it removed. I travelled to the appointment, and as I ... [More]
If you live in Melbourne, you’ve almost certainly heard of the Melbourne Metro Rail Tunnel project (MMRT for short, but to avoid confusion here, I’ll call it Metro 1). You may or may not have also heard of the Metro 2 project. So what is it? It used to be the second stage of Metro ... [More]