The trains are great. Perhaps unsurprisingly the buses are meh. But it’s the trams that are a real disappointment.
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PT to the Melbourne Show
Author: Daniel Bowen
Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.
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Myki, iPhone and payment cards
What’s going on with iPhone and Myki?
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Station shelter: mind the gaps
Am I miscounting? Is there really only one station with all-over platform shelter?
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Heading to Heathcote
We’ve got family in Heathcote, so I visit there a few times a year. The town is about 110 kilometres north of Melbourne and has a population of just under 3000. So what are the current and past public transport options in a town like this? Have you ever noticed how the main freeways out ... [More]
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SRL: all or nothing?
Suburban Rail Loop was first announced by State Labor ahead of the 2018 election. They romped it in, and the conclusion was that the project had widespread support in the electorate. Despite the cost, it was genuinely seen as a big thinking, city-shaping project. Last week the Coalition announced they’d put the project on hold ... [More]
2022 State Election politics has just hotted up on the transport front, and I’ll try and do a blog post on that soon, but in the meantime, here’s another in my series of ten year old photos: this time, August 2012. Multilingual rhinos! The “Melbourne Visitor Shuttle” bus, eventually scrapped in 2017 – it could ... [More]
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Train seat covers
The past week has been a blur and I haven’t had time to post here, so here’s a quick one: On Wednesday I was on ABC Radio Melbourne, talking about train seat covers. Why train seat covers? It was inspired by a Reddit post that noticed the Siemens train seats have lots of station names ... [More]
Iâm not sure why itâs taken so long to get back to this, but here’s the third post comparing old (1924 and 1974) vs current train timetables. Parts one and two covered the western and northwestern lines. Going clockwise the next lines are the red ones on the rail map: the Mernda and Hurstbridge lines. ... [More]
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Glen Huntly tram derailment
The Glen Huntly level crossings are being grade separated, but the tram/train crossing looks like it’ll continue to cause problems until it’s gone next year. On Monday during evening peak, an outbound route 67 tram came off the rails at the crossing. This used to be my neighbourhood, and I don’t live far away, so ... [More]
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Future of the FTZ
Instead of a long rambling blog post today, you can read this from me in The Age: One reason this is being raised now is that problems around slow Myki readers and card availability (and other issues) are likely to be resolved under the new Myki contract. On the point that the FTZ encourages driving: ... [More]
Another in my series of old photos from ten years ago. In July 2012 we were visiting my aunt in Perth – which was a lot of fun. Here’s that quintessential Perth railway view – a train heading down the freeway past the stopped traffic. (But remember, freeways are not a great spot for passenger ... [More]
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Tracking your electricity usage
I’ve written previously about moves to reduce my carbon footprint. I was wondering if it’s possible to get better electricity data… and it turns out it is. With thanks to a post on the Facebook “My Efficient Electric Home” group, it turns out the electricity distributors have a way for you to get half-hourly data ... [More]