Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.
City of Glen Eira is proposing to reduce the speed limit on more roads. They’ve already dropped it from 60 to 50 on several main roads, including Brewer, Tucker, Mackie, Koornang, Inkerman, Kangaroo, Alma and Gardenvale Roads. Now they’re proposing to add Orrong, Kooyong, Bambra, Kambrook, Booran, Neerim and Poath Roads. The key point is ... [More]
This was a truly magic moment during a walk on Sunday. What starts as a slow tram death march takes an unexpected twist. This is nothing without the audio, so make sure you have your sound turned on. Not the best moment for public transport, but truly a great one for active transport.
It’s time for one of my regular posts of photos from ten years ago. Here’s September 2011. Southern Cross Station – exciting new retailers to slow down your path to the trains, coming soon! To be fair, these were mostly not placed in the way. You can find a million and one photos of Hitachi ... [More]
For urban renewal on this scale to work, public transport services need to be a lot better.
I had the washing machine going, so at 9:15am when I suddenly felt the house shaking, I thought it was the spin cycle going a bit crazy. But no… it was the first really big earthquake I’ve ever experienced – magnitude 5.9. I’ve felt tremors before, but this was longer and stronger by far. No ... [More]
With spring now upon us, we’re now almost 18 months into this. Last month I had another birthday in lockdown. A nice dinner and a video call with family made up for it. I don’t enjoy being in lockdown, but it seems to be the least bad way to keep the virus under control while ... [More]
It’s only a little thing, but this has been spotted: the new design for bus stop signs. This seems to be a minor revision of signs first seen in 2018 – the PTV logo is back! Further down the pole, the timetable case and the information with the stop ID (including in Braille) remain – ... [More]
Not many blog posts recently – too busy. So here are some ten year old photos… from August 2011. Queues to exit Flagstaff station. This was an increasing problem as the number of gates was insufficient. Marcus Wong also tracked this issue, and The Age covered the story the following year, and eventually all the ... [More]
The concept of a Travel Time Budget, also known as Marchetti’s constant, was mentioned in conversation last week, and it got me thinking. Marchetti posits that although forms of urban planning and transport may change, and although some live in villages and others in cities, people gradually adjust their lives to their conditions (including location ... [More]
Night Network cuts, the appalling comms, and the impact
The recent IPCC report is a reminder that we should all be doing what we can to minimise our environmental impact. Rather than big picture, right now I wanted to focus on rubbish going to landfill. I think it’s good that my local council, Glen Eira, have modified their rubbish collection. Since late July, the ... [More]
Last week the State Government announced another ten level crossings to be removed, on the Pakenham, Frankston, Mernda, Sunbury, Lilydale and Belgrave lines. This made sense in part because they want to keep the workforce busy once other projects are completed. Leave it too long and those skilled people will move elsewhere, and you can’t ... [More]