It may be costing $700 million, and it may be causing untold confusion and inconvenience while it’s being built, and the new name might be silly… but damn, that rolly roof is impressive. Click here to see it bigger (and unencumbered by the blog navigation) (Yeah, there’s a slight glitch in the picture where a ... [More]
Category: transport
All forms of transport, including gunzelly
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Speeding fines
I treat speeding fines as a purely optional tax. I know some people seem to see them us unavoidable (notably one guy I knew who worked in car insurance), but really, nobody has to speed. Nothing’s compelling you to press down harder on that accelerator. Those people zooming past me or tailgating might remember that ... [More]
On Tuesday night Melbourne City Council approved a plan (by the narrowest of margins) to build four new tram superstops along Collins Street. Fine, very good, wheelchair accessible, more pleasant to wait in and use than safety zones. But they also plan to close three stops: at Queen, King and Russell Streets. We’ve had a ... [More]
Don’t throw away your February Met ticket: Connex will have to offer compensation for the first time ever to all Connex Melbourne train customers who hold a monthly or longer ticket from February. They got caught by a mere 0.01%, with 91.99% arriving within 5 minutes of their scheduled time, just barely under their 92% ... [More]
Today the Kyoto protocol comes into effect, at least in the countries that have signed up to it. Of which ours isn’t one, so unlike most industrialised countries, we (along with the US and China) can blissfully keep pumping CO2 into the air, with no legal consequences. A lot of the contributions to emissions come ... [More]
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Magical Mystery Tour
A somewhat circuitous commute this morning. 9:05. Get to Glenhuntly station. Note large crowd on platform — never a good sign that late in the morning. 9:10. Connex lady is leaving for the day, but mumbles something about problems. Green button for latest info refuses to talk to me. I hang about at the front ... [More]
It started with an observation from one or both of my offspring: “I’ve never been on a sprinter train!” So I thought ah, one more week of holidays for me, I’ll take them on the train down to Geelong. They’re well-versed with travel on the suburban trains (it’s all part of my “Dad’s taxi”-avoidance scheme ... [More]
Mural, Canterbury Street, Yarraville. (Hands up who remembers the red rattler trains?)
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NYE
The whole New Year’s Eve debacle saga that I wrote about a few months ago came bubbling back up to the surface today. The trains will run all night, as well as more frequently straight after the fireworks. Herald Sun: Trains all night on New Year’s Eve The Age: Public transport plan to avert New ... [More]
Look, I know it’s hard to use your car’s indicators properly. Having that little switch so close to your hands on the steering wheel, and remembering to use it to… err… indicate… obviously there isn’t enough training in this when learning to drive. I’ll give you a few specific hints though. To the guy in ... [More]
After the puppetry, we sat in the train on Friday night at Flinders Street, waiting for the 10:12pm departure (for Sandringham — not my usual line — long story), munching on the banana cake and sipping our hot chocolates from the concourse snack purveyor. Both were, frankly, much better than I expected them to be, ... [More]