All forms of transport, including gunzelly
(This post adapted from a Twitter thread posted yesterday) Rail replacements on the Caulfield line are not the only major disruptions to public transport at the moment. Bus routes from the eastern suburbs into the CBD are some of the busiest in Melbourne. All of them are currently terminating on the edge of the CBD ... [More]
In Victoria, public transport performance data (in particular reliability aka cancellations, and punctuality aka delays) is “usually published on the 10th of every month.” – or so they claim, anyway. This typically gives eligible passengers just under 3 weeks to claim compensation. Applications normally close at the end of the month. But the publication of ... [More]
Happy birthday Myki! Yesterday marked ten years since the Myki system’s implementation in Melbourne. It was switched on for Melbourne trains on 29th December 2009. The roll-out and first ten years of operation ended up costing a whopping $1.5 billion. The only Australian system of comparable size, NSW’s Opal system, was a little bit cheaper, ... [More]
It’s time for my annual blog post about the mess that is Boxing Day public transport at Chadstone. 2017: Chadstoneâs Boxing Day bus debacle 2018: Boxing Day buses at Chadstone: still big problems It happens every year at Chadstone and the other big shopping centres: hordes of shoppers descend. Demand fills the car parks, which ... [More]
This plan got splashed onto the Age front page on Friday: Tunnel link mulled for Geelong fast trains Of course if you were paying very, very careful attention, this wasn’t a complete surprise. The eventual shift of Geelong trains back to Newport and the Metro 2 tunnel was included in a document leaked in 2018, ... [More]
For the big summer works blitz, the Department of Transport has an online calendar showing which lines are affected on which days. This is good, because it’s much more legible than their usual confusing lists of lines and days. It includes up to mid-February 2020. The January closures were announced on 21st November, so the ... [More]
In the mainstream media, they have word limits. Even online, they have to keep it succinct. Blogs have no such limits, so I apologise not only for revisiting this topic again, but also for rambling on so long. Bustitution looms again over the summer, with large scale rail closures on the Mernda line underway now, ... [More]
Tony Abbott, in a way, was right: “The humblest person is king in his own car.” Tony Abbott, Battlelines I can see his point here. I don’t know about them being humble, but (especially as a pedestrian or a cyclist) you see plenty of people in their cars who think they are royalty. The problem ... [More]
One of the things people have been wondering is whether the Suburban Rail Loop will be an integral part of the existing suburban Metro network, or a standalone line. Melbourne’s existing rail network has its origins in the 1854 line from Port Melbourne to Flinders Street (since converted to trams), but also particularly in the ... [More]
Why is it that at most traffic lights, the crossings for pedestrians are so narrow? Even in Melbourne’s CBD, where heavy pedestrian numbers are expected, most crossings are far too narrow for the number of people. It appears that technically, anybody crossing outside the lines is in breach of Road Safety Rule regulation 234 (a) ... [More]
Last week the government announced timetable changes, including adjustments to the Cranbourne/Pakenham line. (I’ll just call it the Dandenong line for short. Almost everybody else does.) Of the roughly 265 services per weekday, 93 will be adjusted. A few will be quicker by a minute or two, but most of the 93 will be slower ... [More]
Update – see below At busy times, queues can form at station fare gates, especially when large numbers of people arrive from multiple trains at once. Investment in more gates and faster (Vix) readers has helped – 950 new readers are being installed in 141 stations. But it’s noticeable than some people wait for the ... [More]
It’s not your imagination. Some City Loop escalators are running slower in peak hour. Normally: Fast in peak, slow off-peak Normal practice (for decades now) is to run the Loop station escalators at a reasonable clip during peak hour, and set to slow down outside peak. This is pretty annoying for many of those catching ... [More]
One of the gaping holes in Melbourne’s public transport system is the lack of an all-day every day frequent service on the backbone: the Metro suburban train network. Melbourne is one of the few cities in the world, outside North America, which doesn’t have frequent all day trains. Other Australian cities are moving towards this. ... [More]
A Metro (MTM) proposal has emerged for big changes to the operation of the City Loop for trains running through the Caulfield and Burnley tunnels. The page below is from a document discussing CBD station capacity implications from the introduction of the High Capacity Metro Trains. I’m told the document is genuine. It reveals that ... [More]
This is part two of my ten year old photos from September 2009. At the time, Myki had been launched in regional cities, and was about to start in Melbourne. Ahead of the wider rollout, I got to look around the Myki test centre, which was fascinating. Around the place were lots of test cards ... [More]