You might recall a while ago I posted about the lack of awareness of $3.50 cheap weekend fares, and frequent (every 10 minutes) trains on some lines on weekends. Well, finally PTV are promoting both. This is a step forward. It’s a shame the imagery in the frequent trains ad uses the outer stations’ buildings ... [More]
Category: transport
All forms of transport, including gunzelly
Today Metro shuts down its SMS Alerts service. It has been running since September 2001, when it was introduced (the day before 9/11), initially for Connex Connector Plus (Connex-only yearly ticketholders) — and back when Connex only covered half the rail network, of course. It spread to all customers and all lines later, along with ... [More]
An article in The Age today notes that while there were a few issues, last weekend’s inaugural PAX Australia video game festival went well. We went along on the Sunday, and had a good time. We avoided the sessions with long queues, and instead saw an XBox launch event, played some games in the retro ... [More]
Yesterday designs for the redevelopment of Flinders Street Station were released. You can look at them in detail and even vote on them at voteflindersst.com.au — though the vote won’t actually determine the design used, only “
The state government continues to push the East-West motorway (a plan they barely mentioned in the 2010 election campaign) over major public transport projects. But what do the people want? As it happens there’s a pretty clear message from surveys going back at least five years. (Skip to the end for the latest one.) October ... [More]
A couple of years ago I wrote about Nissan Micra ads at Flinders Street Station directly criticising public transport. This time, it’s Kia’s turn, though it’s a little less overt. Spotted at Malvern (as well as other locations, such as South Yarra): You know, I’ve been using public transport for decades. I’ve seen people asleep, ... [More]
Last Saturday some of us from the PTUA did a tour of the Regional Rail Link project. Here are some photos and notes. The RRL project, for those who haven’t being paying attention, is basically a brand new railway from somewhere west of Werribee, through new stations in the fast-growing suburbs of Wyndham Vale and ... [More]
I assume this Anti-Hate advertising campaign from the Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission is a response to some well-publicised incidents recently: The small print says: The only thing more painful than racism is the silence that follows. If someone’s abused on this train, let them know you’re on their side. Help stop the hurt. ... [More]
If Tony Abbott’s Coalition won’t build rail, why do they include a rail icon on their infrastructure policy? At least, I’m assuming it’s an icon for rail — not giant white picket fences to keep out asylum seekers, or something like that. (The above is from the summarised version. The slightly more detailed policy document ... [More]
It’s often said that there hasn’t been a suburban rail line built in Melbourne since the Glen Waverley line opened in 1930. To be precise, that year it was extended from Darling to Glen Waverley. Others built or extended since then have either been electrification along existing lines, or re-openings of lines along old alignments: ... [More]
You might recall I did a recent poll on three public transport questions. I posted about the first two here. The third was about frequent network maps. Here’s the thinking: Frequent public transport services are an order of magnitude more useful to people than infrequent ones. Nobody likes to live their life by a timetable, ... [More]
My time on the PTUA committee only overlapped with Paul’s by about a year or so. I was newsletter editor in his final year as President. But I remembered him from my days as an “ordinary” member in the 90s, and in my time as Prez and afterwards, I encountered him regularly around the traps. ... [More]