All forms of transport, including gunzelly
I think I might have out-done myself this time. Last month I represented the PTUA at a senate hearing into Commonwealth investment in public transport. During questions, the topic of public transport for special events came up, and as I had the night before been to such an event, I drew on that personal experience ... [More]
“Particularly during peak period where we know it has been a difficult period, but we’ve had patronage growth in such a short period that no other jurisdiction around Australia has experienced,” [Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky] said. “Indeed, I’m not aware of any other location around the world that has had the levels of patronage ... [More]
OK, so I’ve finally seen the modified test train in the flesh. Here’s a short video explaining the changes. Both the video and a Flickr slideshow are over on the PTUA web site. I think it’s okay. In an age where people struggle just to squeeze on board the train, this design encourages people to ... [More]
Andrew notes a certain fascination among some people with the London Underground. For me, it’s the concept of an entire network of railway services where you don’t need a timetable. You just turn up and go. The result is people treating the trains as the default way of getting around for a lot more trips ... [More]
This is how it was told to me. Can’t say I’ve seen anything like this myself. The tram was departing Footscray from the terminus, close to the market. A passenger got on board, with two live chickens from the market. “Mate”, said the tram driver, “you can’t bring live animals on the tram!” “Oh. Okay”, ... [More]
Is the culture around public transport changing? Back in 2003 or so, General Motors Canada issued this advert: Creeps and Weirdos. (Pic via Richard Layman) Later they apologised for it. Something closer to the mark (at least for Melbourne’s buses) would have been “Pensioners and school kids”. But that hardly bites in quite the right ... [More]
I tried Myki for myself on Saturday in Geelong. Bought one for the promotional price of $5 in the special Myki Shop in Ryrie Street and hopped on a bus to the station. Some brief notes on it: I’ve since gone onto the web site and registered my Myki and looked at my transactions. The ... [More]
There’s a debate raging about whether or not electric trains should be extended to Sunbury. Some Sunbury passengers are arguing that they want to keep V/Line services. There might be a bigger issue here: whether Sunbury people want to be part of suburban Melbourne or not. I gather that came up at last night’s public ... [More]
This post has been superseded by this one from 2015, which used far better statistics For all the prominence given to issues around railway station car parks, the number of people using them is only a fraction of the total numbers of people using the trains. Source: Total users — Connex figure of 360,000. P+R ... [More]
No straps to hold onto / Standing in the doorways is easiest Connex has a proposal to reduce the number of seats in some trains, as well as other internal carriage changes, including changing the doorways, and putting in more handholds. …Flashback… Almost six years ago, I took my newly purchased Canon A70 digital camera ... [More]
Apparently I’m a militant. [Myki] has been slagged by public transport militant Daniel Bowen by reference to the hideous early 1980’s hit ‘Hey Mickey’ recently revived in cheerleader films of dubious repute. — Vexnews — news for patriots (?!) Hmmmmm. Interesting that they linked to a blog post where I thought I was quite impartial ... [More]
Informative The driver I got during last Monday week’s afternoon mess on the Dandenong and Frankston lines was jovial, frank, and informative. I’m paraphrasing here: “There’s another train broken down at Southern Cross, so we’re being changed to run directly to Richmond… as soon as I can get to the other end of the train.” ... [More]
There’s now proof that the introduction of Myki will actually slow down trams. The Libs FOI’d the test figures, which found that: …if 20 passengers join a tram and another 20 alight at the same stop, the predicted average time a tram would be stationary was 38 seconds under the new myki smartcard compared to ... [More]
Sunday afternoon, waiting for the 6:40. Yes, people with grey hair use laptops too. “Mind the gap” is something familiar to Londoners (where some of the gaps really are worth minding), but this warning has recently shown up at Footscray. Monday the 16th was not a good day on the Frankston line. I didn’t have ... [More]
That picture showed up again, this time in an article I wrote for Planning News. I like the blur they’ve put on it.
Arriving at the station yesterday morning, up the line at McKinnon, we could see this: Not a good sign. Word was there was a fire on the train. The evening TV news and today’s Herald Sun revealed what happened: Jesse Martin, once lauded as the youngest person to sail solo around the world, had come ... [More]