All forms of transport, including gunzelly
This is Deer Park station. (Superb pic snapped a few years ago by my friend Tony.) And this is the new pod for Protective Services Officers at Deer Park station. According to the official list, PSOs are now deployed there. Marcus Wong’s PSO tracking spreadsheet says they started there on July 1st. Deer Park of ... [More]
The hi fi box was a big hit with my niece (and nephew) Having obtained a government-provided “boarding pass” (they were handed out with some MXs — I missed out but managed to get one via Kev, who saved it for me), I went searching for the airport rail link. Strangely enough it wasn’t listed ... [More]
Updates: September 2017 | November 2018 | November 2020 Jump straight to the list I’ve been trying to sort out the status of all the level crossings from the various lists. Some are fully funded, others are funded for planning, and some are merely promises/pledges from the politicians. I ended up going back to the ... [More]
Letters that arrive in anonymous envelopes and then turn out to be party political propaganda are not my favourite thing. This one from the State Liberals showed up the other day. The Liberals’ signature project, perhaps the most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the state, is the East West road tunnel — around $18 ... [More]
As I walked to the station this morning there seemed to be an unusually long tailback of cars approaching the level crossing. I found a gaggle of reporters at the station, and shortly afterwards state opposition leader Dan(iel) Andrews showed up, with public transport spokesperson Jill Hennessy and local Bentleigh candidate Nick Staikos, to announce ... [More]
I can’t help noticing that when traffic is relatively light, this sign on Kings Way always it’s 4 minutes to Williamstown Road. This seems as optimistically unlikely as those old Citylink travel time promises. Google Maps reckons it’s 7.7 kilometres, and estimates a travel time without traffic of 6 minutes. The speed limit along the ... [More]
There’s some big news on the East West Link today, with Labor saying that if the Supreme Court agrees with the Cities of Moreland and Yarra that the planning approval was invalid, they will rip up the contracts if elected. Read all about it here in The Age. But meanwhile… Lots of ads for the ... [More]
As we move towards the election, in the marginal seat of Bentleigh, candidates are rightly pondering public transport issues. Trains are already getting a makeover thanks to recent frequency increases and the Bayside rail project. So then… what of the buses? These are important — many people use (or could use, if they were better) ... [More]
I post this picture to make two brief points: Even at 3pm, there are a reasonable number of people heading home. It’s before the school and uni loads really hit — and remembering that there’s only 10 minutes between services on this line. Frequent all-day services help people who can be flexible with their travel ... [More]
This is an old pic, but a classic. I thought I’d lost it, but it showed-up while sorting through some old files on the computer. I did once ask someone at Ventura about it — he said one of their staff had taken the photo, and from memory also said there had been no serious ... [More]
Here’s an interesting issue with Myki which has always been around to an extent, but which has got worse with the switch to exact two-hour fares. The problem The Myki software uses the two hour expiry of a fare as the time after which it assumes the next touch of your card is also a ... [More]
It’s not uncommon to see trams stopped at traffic lights along Bourke Street, sometimes in queues, at locations where there is no stop. If you’ve wondered why your tram journey is start-stop, it won’t surprise you to learn that the lights are all over the place. With the handy-dandy stopwatch function on my mobile phone, ... [More]
Those LED automated signs on station platforms are known in the biz as Passenger Information Displays, or PIDs. In recent months they’ve been installed at a lot of stations along the Frankston line. They’re handy because they provide you with realtime departure information, without having to press the Green Button, which often doesn’t work or ... [More]
I know it’s been around for a while, but I was quite struck the other day by these traffic lights on the corner of La Trobe and Swanston Streets, facing southbound traffic coming down Swanston. The left and right arrows are for motor vehicles (which can go left or right, but not straight ahead). The ... [More]
I’ve already written previously about the fare changes happening (some announced in December, others announced in March), but it’s probably worth considering them all together. Exact 2-hour fares — from 10/8/2014 From yesterday, 2-hour fares are exactly two hours. Although it was originally flagged in December, this has crept up, quietly announced on Friday by ... [More]
The Public Transport Not Traffic campaign organised a story in this week’s local paper, via campaigners Tony, Danita and Oscar setting up a fake bus stop to call for better bus services. Among the quotes in the story from locals is this one from me: “Bentleigh has less frequent buses than it did 25 years ... [More]