All forms of transport, including gunzelly
One of the rituals of the Budget (both State and Federal) is the lock-up. That’s where you get to see the Budget papers before they’re all released, but you can’t leave until they’ve gone public. For the State Budget, there’s a lock-up for journalists, and another for special interest groups/stakeholders. I attended the latter this ... [More]
There’s been a flurry of pre-budget announcements in the world of PT. Hurstbridge line works extended by a week as they grapple with signalling issues on the rebuilt section of track. Apparently it’s down to compatibility issues between new signalling equipment and old. This was announced on Tuesday afternoon. Amazingly, almost 24 hours later, PTV’s ... [More]
There are undoubted challenges to writing information that has to fit into a limited space. Here’s one I noticed recently where perhaps they haven’t got the balance quite right. Bus route 605 was recently changed at its City end, to run via the Botanic Gardens, Southbank and Queen Street to Flagstaff Station, instead of the ... [More]
I don’t have a blog post for you today, but head over to The Age to read my opinion piece there: We can afford better public transport – if we stop building freeways Hopefully it gets some people thinking and talking.
The new Clayton station opened this morning, and I went down to take a look. The design is very similar to Noble Park, which opened in February. A ramp just west of the station (and Clayton Road) brings the trains up onto the elevated section. From there, the track is entirely elevated as far as ... [More]
Well, this is a bit out of the blue. Since at least 1969 they’ve been talking about a (heavy) rail line from Huntingdale via Monash Uni to Rowville. Today it turns out the State Government is proposing a tram line instead. Age: New tram line planned to run from Caulfield to Rowville via Chadstone State ... [More]
Sometimes it’s easy to be cynical. Progress in public transport can be slow. But there is some progress. I found this from May 2007 — it was an email from me to a local politician who had asked about public transport issues in the southern suburbs of Melbourne. I’ll intersperse my original points with some ... [More]
I wrote years ago that it was stupid to throw away 145 years of brand recognition when they renamed Spencer Street station to Southern Cross. Good news – it turns out they’ve just named it back! This is a great idea. The name “Southern Cross” is meaningless. “Spencer Street” is meaningful, it tells you where ... [More]
If you’re confused about tram and train compensation thresholds, you’re not the only one. PTV announced earlier this month that: PTV CEO Jeroen Weimar said both Metro and Yarra Trams narrowly missed their new targets for punctuality in February, but met their targets for reliability. PTV’s web site has figures for February 2018 that clearly ... [More]
One of the promises of the orbital Smartbus routes was to cater for crosstown travel. The Bracks Government’s 2006 Meeting Our Transport Challenges document said this: The Government will invest $1.4 billion to create a crosstown transport network for Melbourne. Major new SmartBus routes, supported by improved local bus services, will connect with the rail ... [More]
Now that the new Noble Park station (aka “Area 3” of the Caulfield to Dandenong “skyrail”) is open, what of the rest of the project? It’s moving fast. “Area 2” in the Clayton area is coming along, and a rail line closure from the 3rd to the 15th of April will allow construction workers to ... [More]
Monday was Labour Day, and I went for a long morning walk. Well okay, I caught a 703 bus from Bentleigh to Centre Road/Huntingdale Road — despite the PTV app incorrectly claiming it wasn’t running most of the day. Then I walked to Huntingdale Station, then west along North Road, and gradually back home. Here ... [More]
Britain is a place many Australians look to with fondness, with many of us having relatives there, and it being a top destination for Australian tourists. As a result, London is sometimes seen as a city to emulate, especially as our cities get bigger. Our current crop of public transport managers certainly have links to ... [More]
Smartbus was devised in the dying days of the Kennett government originally as a mostly hardware-based upgrade: traffic priority, real-time information at stops, distinctive bus stop signs and buses. Originally it didn’t include service upgrades (which sparked derision from the PTUA at the time), but this was changed early on during the Bracks government, with ... [More]
On Friday, The Age reported that Infrastructure Australia has put out a report that asks what sort of city we’d like to have in 2046: The Expanded Low Density scenario – similar to Los Angeles – sprawling, dispersed suburbs, even more car-dominated than today The Centralised High Density scenario – similar to New York City ... [More]
All of us have data being captured about us all the time. For many of us that includes Myki travel data (though even that is tiny compared to the myriad of information captured by our smartphones). Mostly for me it’s the drudgery of everyday work commuting, but every so often there’s something of interest. Crosstown ... [More]