One should never read too much into politicians’ rhetoric, but it was rather good to see comments from Premier-elect Daniel Andrews on Monday in free commuter newspaper MX: “Yes, we need better local roads and yes, we do need to invest in that infrastructure, but the transformational infrastructure is a better public transport system. One ... [More]
Category: transport
All forms of transport, including gunzelly
One day until the state election. They do great work, and it’s rather good to see the ABC’s Fact Check unit looking at Victorian issues just before the election. A couple of days ago they did a segment on train punctuality: The claim: Denis Napthine says his Government has “improved train punctuality”. The verdict: With ... [More]
Two sleeps until the election. Apart from trying to get citizens out to a public meeting, where in the neighbourhood is the best place to meet as many people you can, face-to-face? Judging from what the politicians and lobby groups have been up to, it’s the railway station — on weekdays, at least. I’ve lost ... [More]
Only a few days until the state election, and the campaign is heating up. Here’s something interesting I’ve noticed: apart from posting and advertising on Facebook, the Liberals have paid for Google Adwords advertising — that is, links to appear above search results on Google. They’ve covered the names of a number of Labor candidates ... [More]
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Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt on the 822
Incumbent Elizabeth Miller has gone strong on “saving the 822“, promoting via Facebook and an ad the front page of the local Leader newspaper last week, apparently trying to imply that Labor is proposing to scrap the route completely. Having put the claim out there on Facebook, the Liberals have done nothing to quell people’s ... [More]
The Greens have policy going into the State Election for 17 smallish tram extensions. Mostly they make a lot of sense — extending many tram routes from their current outer termini in the middle of nowhere (a hangover from when trams and railways competed) to a more logical point such as a nearby railway station ... [More]
Backdated. Posted 17/11/2014. Day 4 — Sunday Not much to report. Breakfast at Darlinghurst’s Jekyll & Hyde — which was a bit meh. M’s order came with unwanted eggs, which I adopted. Afterwards I realised it was one of the breakfast places I’d ruled out because some of its Urbanspoon reviews didn’t sound that great ... [More]
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Sydney’s Opal card
(Backdated. Posted 14/11/2014.) During the Sydney trip I tried out Opal card, and M got one as well to try. It’s worth remembering that although the system is provided by Cubic, who built London’s Oyster system, its cost is not insubstantial — $1.2 billion over 15 years. It’s not quite as expensive, but is in ... [More]
Here is my collection of Australian public transport smartcards. The ones I’m missing are Adelaide, Canberra and Tasmania — all of which have been introduced since my last visits there. Notably Perth’s SmartRider is the only card that is blank on the back, which is why the card number (which I’ve blacked-out) is on the ... [More]
Last weekend I tried an experiment, for a PTUA video… In the highly marginal electorate of Bentleigh, having just missed the bus, is it quicker to wait for the next service, or walk to Southland? Given walking speeds and a five kilometre distance, perhaps the answer (at least for reasonably fit, able-bodied people) is obvious… ... [More]
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The “tradies” argument for more roads
The argument for more/bigger roads (particularly motorways) is often that tradies and others need to carry their tools and equipment to jobs, so they can’t use public transport. Perhaps that’s true, but they are the minority of people on the road. According to a 2012 ABS study, only about 7% of people avoid using public ... [More]
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Metro Bingo :-(
Given the Flemington/Showgrounds line isn’t running this morning, and the Stony Point line has planned bustitution, I’m going to go ahead and declare that we have Metro Bingo this morning due to the storms. And no, it’s not much better on many of the roads. Good luck to everybody (myself included, shortly) trying to get ... [More]