Council elections are happening this month. In a lot of areas there’s been a change. Here in Glen Eira we used to have 3 wards with 3 councillors each. Now we’ll have 9 wards with 1 councillor each. I’m not so sure this is a good idea. Unfortunately some elected councillors aren’t great. In the ... [More]
On Wednesday the Coalition announced a pledge to upgrade all the main regional rail lines to 200 km/h, cutting travel times. ABC report: Coalition promises 32-minute trips from Geelong to Melbourne under regional rail upgrade Melbourne is bursting, we must take control of population growth by decentralising growth. The Liberal Nationals 200kmh high speed rail ... [More]
A post in an occasional series wrapping up a few brief transporty things from the last week or two. The new train design This might be the least crowded train I’ve ever caught. That’s because it’s a pretend train, a mock-up of a carriage and a half, somewhere in a warehouse in outer-suburban Melbourne. I ... [More]
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]
I’ll get to writing up our Brisbane trip in full excruiciating detail in due course, but first what everyone wants to know: How is Go Card compared to Myki? First impressions Go Card seems faster; more responsive. On buses, ferries and railway stations we consistently seemed to get sub-second response times when touching the card ... [More]
Murrumbeena/Carnegie, 2003-2005 The move to Carnegie in 2003 gave me two local stations, because the house was almost equidistant between them. It was slightly closer to Murrumbeena, so I usually used that. But Carnegie had better access to shops, so that got used sometimes too. I’ve mentioned Murrumbeena already. Carnegie hasn’t changed much recently, but ... [More]
Via Google’s archive of The Age, I found this, the 1969 freeway plan for Melbourne, with 1974 modifications (including a number of cuts). It’s a little bit stylised, but according to the article, the plan was deliberately vague about which inner-suburban areas were to be demolished. A monstrous plan, you might think. Freeways everywhere! But ... [More]
When we tuned into the first Hey Hey special last Wednesday, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It’s been ten years since the show ended, which seems like a long time, but most of the regulars from back then are still around. I first watched Hey Hey when I was a kid, when it ... [More]
(Post backdated to the day it happened. Posted Tue 10 Oct 2006.) When it comes to hotel accomodation: there’s a few different variants. First is your budget place: backpackers and so on. Ugly, perhaps not comfortable, often pretty bare, but cheap. Then there’s your corporate hotels: often ugly, but comfortable and functional. Soemtimes quite expensive. ... [More]
Over the past few years, the banks have stood accused of piling on bank fees, reducing branches and staff, and generally treating their customers with contempt. While this has been happening, they’ve focussed on their most profitable customers, rewarding them with shiny cards, priority phone lines, and something close to obsequiousness. Having got a home ... [More]
Remember when John Safran placed a fatwa on Rove? Last night Rove’s offices burnt down. I wonder if John just choked on his cornflakes. (For those who didn’t see the segment, the evidence was clearly stated as faked. Although we saw the fatwa declared, by the end of the segment it was shown being withdrawn ... [More]
Public Transport Users Ass? Daniel, dammit, my name is DANIEL. I know I said I’d stop talking about this, but it’s too freaky not to mention. 1:15, I said I’d meet them. A couple of friendly journalists,going to a ministerial press conference, wanted to talk to me afterwards. As I walked the two blocks to ... [More]
I watched American Beauty last night. Well, that is, I watched some of it. I’d seen it before. Great movie. And Channel 9 were showing a remarkably enlightened attitude in their broadcast of it, leaving it in wide screen, and more importantly leaving all the swearing intact. Just a shame the commercials made it go ... [More]
Yes, I’m back, in fact we’re all back from gallivanting around Europe. Survived the crossing the street in Rome, dodged the pickpockets on the Metro, minded the gap in London, missed the Paddington rail disaster by about two hours, and even somehow flew there and back without the kids sending us completely insane.