All forms of transport, including gunzelly
Noted at Flinders Street Station the other week, on one of those automatic rotating advertisement things: competing ads for Myki. “Even the shortest queue can be avoided with Myki auto topup” A few seconds later: “Top-up at 7-Eleven now!” (The third ad in the sequence was not Myki-related… after that it flipped back and repeated ... [More]
In an ABS survey in 2009, 4.0 million people (18.5% of the population) reported having a disability. Of people with a disability, Mobility aids used by about 15% of them. So about 600,000 people nationwide use mobility aids of some kind: walking sticks, walking frames, wheelchairs. Additionally, the 2011 Census says there are 1,457,571 people ... [More]
Say what you like about VicRoads, they know how to do forward planning. For example, there’s a stretch of Ballarat Road in Footscray, just west of where the dual carriageway ends, where this is a common sight: Lovely, isn’t it. Derelict wasteland, left to rot. A look at Google’s aerial view reveals quite a few ... [More]
There’s a legendary excuse for late-running trains in Britain called the wrong type of snow (fallen on railway lines). Apparently the wrong leaves are also blamed sometimes. I recall a Yarra Trams person telling me that while they love Melbourne’s leafy streets, some of our local trees drop the wrong leaves (I’m paraphrasing mind you, ... [More]
Overheard near Nagambie, about travelling to Melbourne: “A lot of people go to Seymour to catch the train. There’s one once an hour from there.” Yep. At stations beyond Seymour, where the Shepparton and the Albury line branch off, there’s usually only about 3 trains each way per day. But at Seymour, there are 20 ... [More]
A while back I was talking about train load standards, which as you’ll recall is 798 per train (or 133 per carriage). Similar desired load standards exist for trams, but they vary much more widely because the tram fleet is much more diverse in size. These are found in volume 2 of the tram contract, ... [More]
Yesterday’s closure of the Monash Freeway outbound at Warrigal Road due to an accident shows one reason why the “second river crossing“/”backup for the Westgate” idea wouldn’t work. The Monash Freeway is 4 lanes for most of its length. So is Dandenong Road (aka the Princes Highway), which runs more-or-less parallel to it, and was ... [More]
Lily Dale Dan Denong Flin der Street Lyn Brook Ben T’Leigh Pat Terson Mal Vern Frank Ston Cam Berwell William Stown Glen Ferrie Victoria Park and Clifton Hill (of course!) Thomas Town Wes Tall Syd Enham Mel Bournecentral Al Tona and his brother Wes Tona Glen Roy Craig Ieburn Edith Vale Ken Sington Merlyn Ston ... [More]
I finally got around to playing a bit of Cities In Motion. The game is fun, but in some ways is really not much better than the older Traffic Giant… though it looks nicer, seems to have more underlying complexity, and has more scenarios. From what I’ve seen, my main beefs would be: Trams and ... [More]
Many European countries put serious resources into their public transport systems and have networks that are the envy of the world, but don’t necessarily assume they are better than us in every single respect. For instance, one might assume that German trains are never late — or at least that their punctuality is light years ... [More]
Heading south along William Street in morning peak hour, fighting for space on the street, are pedestrians (predominantly coming out of Flagstaff station), trams, cyclists and motorists. How many of each? Tram route 55 gets a tram about every 4 minutes in peak hour. The May 2012 PTV load survey said that each tram carries ... [More]
It was 44 years last week since the 1969 crash of the Southern Aurora into a goods train at Violet Town in northeast Victoria. (Upgrades to safety systems should ensure such a crash doesn’t happen again.) The CFA has published a set of photos and a fascinating article about the disaster — well worth a ... [More]