Old photos from November 2010

Here we go again – another post of photos from ten years ago.

Siemens train carriages have never had enough handholds.

…The photo below shows the layout from 2015 onwards: the removal of some seats near the doors and addition of more bars helped a bit, but along most of the carriage there’s still not enough.

Sunset over Melbourne, looking southwest towards Southbank. You can see a tram peeking out from behind St Paul’s.

Heavy rain at Bentleigh station. One benefit of the level crossing removal in 2016 is that all the drainage was improved.

The Lonsdale Street Smartbus routes had launched a month earlier. I don’t think this bus stop sign quite matched the then Metlink signage standards.

This bus lane wasn’t quite doing the job either. There’s often talk of separation measures for tram lanes – bus lanes should probably have something too.

State election time! Then State Opposition transport spokesperson Terry Mulder at a press conference in Parliament Station.

Also for the state election, I was at the ABC’s Southbank centre for a TV interview, which they ended up doing in the foyer.

The 2010 Bentleigh Festival was six days before the State Election. Here the Greens have set up next to incumbent Labor’s Rob Hudson’s electorate office. Neither of them won the seat – it went to the Liberals before swinging back in 2014.

The border around a video screen is called a bezel, and ho boy, the 2010 versions used at the Elizabeth Street entrance to Flinders Street Station certainly had some thick ones.

…Here’s the 2020 version: the screens now have more usable space, and are in colour.

It wasn’t hard to see that the Free Tram Zone would result in crowding – it just helped expand a long-running problem with the City Circle.

The FTZ is the subject of a Parliamentary report just released. There’s a 3AW interview from Thursday online here if you’re interested.