Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.
With many people, myself included, spending most of the time at home, you’ll need to indulge me in another non-transport blog post. I once wrote that the five biggest cultural influences of my childhood were Lego, Tintin, Usborne Books, Doctor Who and The Goodies. Many Australians of my age fondly remember The Goodies thanks to ... [More]
How’s everybody going? Managing okay I hope? How’s the working week going? Well I’m spending it at home.How was your weekend? Mostly at home.What did you get up to last night? … I was at home. It’s been an adjustment, but we’re managing in my family. Working from home (now in the fourth week) is ... [More]
Since many people aren’t using public transport right now, some us who have a Myki Pass aren’t getting much out of them. Normally the only option is to get a refund. Because of the way PTV calculates refunds, this often isn’t worthwhile. Back when the COVID-19 crisis was first emerging, your friendly local public transport ... [More]
Amongst all the chaos in the world, a everyday standard curve-ball thrown my way: my fridge broke down on the weekend. Okay – drag out the esky and buy a bag of ice (no I’m not going to a party) and save what food I can. Lucky I’m not a big hoarder of food, so ... [More]
With all the talk of falling public transport patronage (some estimates have suggested it’s down 90%) and persistent (but unconfirmed) rumours of reduction of services to weekend levels, it’s worth remembering that capacity is only one aspect of service levels. Normally, trains trams and buses are often packed, but with patronage currently so low, passengers ... [More]
One of the effects of the COVID-19 crisis (which I wrote about in general terms yesterday) is a steep fall in public transport usage. This is partially people avoiding the network and switching to other modes such as cycling and driving, but mostly it’s people avoiding travelling in the first place. (City Mapper data suggests ... [More]
I said it last week, but this whole situation is surreal. At this point, there are 3,048 confirmed cases of COVID-19 around Australia. In the past week or two, the number has roughly doubled every 3-4 days. There’s a slight bit of relief for those of us in Victoria – the growth here is a ... [More]
There’s a lot of doom and gloom from COVID-19 at the moment. So here’s something positive: I got a new hot water system. Twelve years ago this month I got solar hot water installed: a collector panel on the roof, a tank to store the water, and a gas booster. I thought it was going ... [More]
Let’s momentarily distract ourselves from the perils of March 2020 with some photos from ten years ago. Parliament station, back when the old Passenger Information Displays were CRTs with a blue background. They converted the Flinders Street Lane/Spring Street crossing from a zebra to signalised – thus downgrading the experience for pedestrians. There was crowding ... [More]
COVID-19 is developing very fast, and really is quite unlike anything in living memory. I feel like Australia is still at the early stages, and already the impacts are huge. The ban on events of more than 500 people from Monday is unprecedented, and shopping for scarce supermarket items is a little bit surreal. I’m ... [More]
Unlike most of the spots where skyrail replaced level crossings on the Dandenong line, this area at Centre Road (Clayton South) has no station. I happened to stop past there on the public holiday Monday and was interested to see the different groups using the space. Overall it looks pretty clean. Note the graffiti mural ... [More]
This tram and bus shelter shown below is at a stop in Footscray – at Tiernan Street and Droop Street. Sometime in late-January the main panel of glass got smashed. Authorities cleared away the broken glass and put hazard tape around it. Fresh tape was provided a couple of weeks later. But what about actually ... [More]