Yearly: Beat the price rise Just bought my new Yearly ticket via PTUA Commuter Club. It’ll take a couple of weeks to arrive, but it means I’ll beat the March 12th price rise. PTUA Commuter Club Yearly plus membership: Z1 = $1090 (order by end of Feb; payment must clear by March 3rd). Will go ... [More]
Category: transport
All forms of transport, including gunzelly
Looping the loop
Reminder: the views expressed on my personal blog do not necessarily represent the views of the PTUA. So, the result of the poll a few days ago was: Run some lines via the Loop, some direct to Flinders St: 129 (66.8%) Run each line half via the Loop, half direct to Flinders St: 57 (29.5%) ... [More]
Under the clocks
Some of the clocks at Flinders Street Station need updating. If they managed to update the leftmost clock to say “Pakenham and Cranbourne” (the Cranbourne line opened in 1995), why can’t they update the “St Albans” one to say “Sydenham”? (Actually, wait a year or two and then change it to “Sunbury“.) Update 9am: Oh ... [More]
I suppose it’s inevitable that if you sell advertising space, sometimes you’ll be allowing advertising for your competitors. And advertising for cars is commonly found on public transport. But some of Nissan’s advertising around Flinders Street station goes a step further by directly criticising the public transport it is competing with, with slogans such as ... [More]
Monthly ticket costs
Remember this post a while back where I tried to figure out how many days in a month you need to travel to make Monthly tickets a worthwhile purchase? Turns out in many other cities around the world, a Monthly ticket is a no-brainer purchase, even if you work 4 days a week, even if ... [More]
I ran this poll on an internal PTUA members’ email list. Let’s try it here. Here’s the context: Trains, particularly in peak hour, are packed. More trains are being purchased, but the decision has to be made about how to deploy them. (Even if it’s decided to upgrade infrastructure such as with the proposed new ... [More]
Bentleigh crossing
Last week a lady was tragically killed on the level crossing at Bentleigh station, when she walked in front of an express train. I’d never do it, but unfortunately far too often people do take the risk. It’s not difficult — despite the upgrade, if you approach the crossing from the right hand footpath, you ... [More]
The train to Port Melbourne
The Port Melbourne railway line closed in 1987, but this train wanted to go there. (Thanks to Terry who spotted it in time for me to snap a pic. It’s possible the sign is stuck, since it looks like the same carriage was snapped recently elsewhere.) In today’s Herald Sun: New Metro timetable as trains ... [More]
Mind the gap
My favourite picture from Friday’s floods; courtesy of Herschel Landes, who snapped it at Windsor Station (on Saturday morning I assume). The trains had stopped running on many lines on Friday night. But earlier when the water level was lower, they had been running through Windsor, as shown in this video someone posted to Youtube: ... [More]
PT on Lonsdale Street
In central Melbourne, if you want to travel a reasonable distance east-west, it’s easy to do so on most of the streets by hopping on a tram. Flinders Street, Collins Street, Bourke Street and Latrobe Street all have multiple routes serving them, making for reasonably frequent services most of the day. Not so Lonsdale Street. ... [More]
Just another Myki stuff-up
VICTORIA’S beleaguered myki ticketing system has hit another snag, with 20,000 seniors posted a new smartcard that does not give them the travel benefits they are entitled to, including free weekend travel and discounted weekday fares. — Age: New bungle hits myki Peter of Murrumbeena, a regular commenter on this blog, is one of those ... [More]
The last Metcard
I was an early adopter of Myki, if only to see the problems it’s had first hand. But since I started using it, I’ve still carried a Metcard in my wallet. The last Metcard. A 10×2 hour zone 2, for my occasional forays into zone 2 — used on days I was only going into ... [More]