All forms of transport, including gunzelly
Just following-up the post the other day about high fuel prices, more than anything, hopefully forcing action on public transport. TonyH pointed me to this excellent article by George Monboit, who notes that so far there is no such action, and that high fuel prices are in fact the biggest thing currently helping to reducing ... [More]
Public transport is by its very nature a social experience. Which probably explains the number of Overheard in Melbourne posts from PT. It’s not all people with noisy phone ringtones, those with annoyingly sniffly noses, and raucous teenagers. These are the people I’ve randomly run into on the train/tram/at stations in the last couple of ... [More]
I was helping on a PTUA stall back in January, at the Sustainable Living Festival. It was interesting to talk to the different people coming by. One guy expressed disappointment about car pollution. He said some people would never want to part with their cars. This is not an opinion I entirely agree with. People ... [More]
It apparently happened about 8:30am overnight, but was only noticed at 8:30am. A 20 year old man decided to do a bit of “train surfing”. He touched the wires. Zap. Dead. By the time I went through at about 9:30, they were cleaning up the scene. Not that you could see anything; bystanders were kept ... [More]
My street is a leafy side-street, well away from industrial land. We see the supermarket trucks rolling through our suburb, but other than that, few big freight vehicles are seen. In fact a bigger volume of freight probably goes through Bentleigh on the steel trains from Hastings than on trucks on the streets. Not so ... [More]
I love the concept of commuter cycling. While my trip to work is a little too far, I love the idea of riding to places like my sister’s house or my mum’s house or my dad’s place (all just a few km away) on the bike. I love the idea of taking the whole family ... [More]
Perhaps sometimes it’s a disadvantage knowing too much about all the transport options. When mild interruptions occur, it might make one more inclined to take the alternatives, even when ultimately it doesn’t really save any time. Take, for example, Tuesday morning’s commute. It started with two SMSs. The 8:36 and the 8:52 from Glenhuntly to ... [More]
It was easy to find a taxi this morning in the city, but more difficult to find a driver — or at least one who would take you anywhere. Taxi drivers were protesting about driver safety, blocking the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets. Quite a few empty cabs were parked nearby. Despite claims of ... [More]
The Age yesterday ran a report on the PTUA’s submission to the Garnaut inquiry on climate change, with the headline being “Ban new freeways: transport group” — above another rather good article about cars not being on average any more efficient than 40 years ago. It didn’t take long for the rev heads to spot ... [More]
I know 774’s traffic and train updates are done directly in the studio (I saw it happen when I was in there the other week). Channel 10’s are done from a helicopter — you get to see the lady in it as she talks. What about the other radio stations? Many of them make it ... [More]
1. Contrary to this report in the Geelong Advertiser, the term “bustitution” has been around for years. I don’t know who first coined it. A number of regular services to and from Geelong have been replaced by coaches through April, giving rise to a new term being coined by the Public Transport Users’ Association – ... [More]
You know what narks me? It’s the argument that we have to build lots more roads because people have to drive so that they have personal mobility. It’s an argument from the road lobby that is basically saying wherever you go, you have to be able to take your car. And it gets traction because ... [More]