The flaws of the proposed east-west road are well-known, but let’s briefly re-cap. Most traffic from the Eastern Freeway is headed for the city, not cross-town. It wouldn’t be a backup for the M1 (Westgate/Citylink), because it would have its own traffic, and for most road users, it’s too far north. It wouldn’t prevent traffic ... [More]
Next Tuesday’s state budget is probably the last chance the government has to fund Southland station as promised and have work well underway by the time the next election comes around. Given a string of seats along the Frankston line swung on public transport issues, if it doesn’t get funding, I reckon there’ll be some ... [More]
A regular suggestion that pops up is that Melbourne’s zone 2 should be merged with zone 1, making the whole metropolitan area a single zone. No surprise that everybody wants cheaper fares… but is it a good idea? No shortage of footy fans on the trains on ANZAC Day, in part thanks to discount fares ... [More]
I get The Age delivered on weekends. On Saturdays in particular it’s good to lazily read its numerous sections in the morning. So I picked it up wanting to know who won the football last night: Richmond or Fremantle? I just want to know if I tipped it right. Sometimes they have the score on ... [More]
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Some ANZAC Day thoughts
Passchendaele This report from last night’s ABC TV news is well worth watching: Western Australian students visiting Passchendaele, and taking on the roles of real WW1 soldiers for a day. The emotional moment in the story is as the connection with their forebears is really nailed, when late in the day, they learn of “their” ... [More]
Tragic events in Boston last week. Being quite interested in language, a couple of things about the use of words caught my eye as events unfolded. Active shooter This is something I’ve noticed before, during all-too-often incidents in the US: the term they now use is “active shooter”. In this case it was at MIT, ... [More]
Some pics from around the place in the past week or two… Train delayed at Southern Cross? Maybe you can catch a hot air balloon instead: Yes, Metro does have diesel engines — and this one is not used on the Stony Point line. It’s part of a special train for inspecting overhead wires: “Advertise ... [More]
This has come up again since RACV are resisting the removal of a lane of traffic on Princes Bridge to give cyclists more than the part of a busy footpath and the mere sliver of roadspace they have now: What alternatives are there to RACV road service? Because if you disagree with the RACV’s stance ... [More]
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The past and future of retail
In one lunchtime walk yesterday, I saw both the past and future of retail. “As seen on TV.” Seriously, they still use this tagline to hook people in? Does it still work? It’s never the name-brand products which used this — always the slightly dodgy ones. I walked past this display twice, and saw nobody ... [More]
The Phase 2 Report from the High Speed Rail study was released last week — predicting that although HSR would cover its recurrent (running/maintenance) costs, it’d first take some $114 billion and 45 years to build it. As I’ve said before, I think a 3-ish hour trip from Melbourne to Sydney would be time-competitive with ... [More]
…this person, who ignored the convention to keep left of the white line in Flinders Lane, and came up against this tram coming around the corner. The tram actually had a fair pace making the turn — luckily it stopped in time to prevent a collision. The motorist backed out of the lane, and hopefully ... [More]
It was house maintenance week this week. I took a couple of days off to do some de-cluttering and get some people in. Hard rubbish got rid of two old mattresses, three former recycle bins, a big plank of wood, an old fan and two disused old bicycles. Amusingly, between putting stuff out/booking the collection ... [More]