Happy democracy day!
As I walked down to the polling place (chosen strategically for its sausage sizzle and cake stall) I was pondering voting and walkability and easy access.
Voting in Australia is a chance to see suburban walkability in action. Most people are within a short walk of a polling place, mostly in local schools and community halls, so many people walk. It’s great.
In fact in Melbourne, far more people are within a short walk of a polling place than a frequent time-competitive public transport service.
Here’s the democracysausage.org map with frequent (every 15 minutes or better) services running today, for my area. Pretty sparse.
My cynical view: they plan and resource voting in such a way that they want to make it easy for everyone. They definitely don’t do this for public transport. The default mode is car, so why even bother competing?
This reflects the prevailing view among many decision makers of public transport service provision: that it’s only for peak hour commuting, and at other times is designed for those who don’t have a choice, so they get a basic service.
So often, it seems that most other upgrades (such as the few frequent weekend services) are driven by crowding plus politics.
Otherwise, things don’t change – which is why in many cases the timetables haven’t changed in decades – while, despite huge investment in roads, the traffic keeps getting worse.
Remember that as we approach the next big poll – the state election in 2026.
One reply on “Democracy day ’25”
Living in Berwick, a suburb with an older demographic, I was surprised to see that none of the voting locations were near public transport. The obvious halls in the high street were not utilised