No time at the moment for any ambitious deep dive blog posts, so here’s a slightly rambling follow-up to last week’s Caulfield to City rail bustitution. For the entire week, I was lucky enough to avoid travelling in peak hours, but overall the feedback was that it was a lot smoother this time. There were ... [More]
I’ve been listening to the Transit Unplugged podcast for a while now on my (sometimes quite long) weekend walks. They typically interview CEOs and other senior managers from public transport systems in the USA, often small-to-medium sized operations. In recent weeks they’ve published a set of interviews with CEOs from much larger operations – and ... [More]
Just a quick one as I’ve been very busy, and have also had a bad cold, so haven’t felt like much writing. The next lot of major bustitution is upon us from Saturday morning, and including all of next week: no trains between the City and Caulfield. You’ll recall that at Easter, this was a ... [More]
Here (just a few hours late) is another in my series of ten year old photos: this time, it’s June 2009. Already the subject of a blog post, was this confusing ad on the side of a bus. Does it mean it’s flexible or not? Don’t you wish you were not packed into a train ... [More]
Last week’s two whirlwind trips to Brisbane were busy with family business, but there was a chance for a few quick transporty observations. Tourists see signs for “stations” and might assume they’re all railway stations. Nope, some of them are busway stations – they just look similar from the outside! Boggo Road busway station has ... [More]
In the past week, I’ve flown to Brisbane and back twice. My Uncle Frank got very sick. My sister, my cousin and I are his closest relatives, and we all live interstate. Thankfully we were able to go and see him. He passed away on Sunday morning. It was peaceful in the end, but it ... [More]
A follow-up to last week’s post mapping out the number of train services per station. Commenter Andrew suggested I compare it against patronage – happily I’d been working on this anyway! Here it is – and as a bonus I’ve got hold of 2017-18 station patronage data. The darker the blue, the higher the boardings ... [More]
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before: slicing and dicing GTFS data is not as intimidating as I thought it might be, and it’s pretty easy to import into Google Maps so you can visualise it. Once you find what you want and figure out its quirks, you can get some pretty ... [More]
It’s the end of May, so it’s time for a batch of photos from ten years ago. I quite liked this ad for iiNet in Flinders Street Station: I was snapping photos for Tony’s web site “Our Fading Past” (currently offline, but the Google Map is up), highlighting old signs around Melbourne. This classic is ... [More]
Good news: New bus route 627 starts in June, running from Moorabbin to Chadstone via East Bentleigh and Murrumbeena. Excuse the micro-transport-blogging about this specific route in my local area, but (as usual) there are considerations that are relevant across the network. This new route fills some gaps in the local network, including East Boundary ... [More]
In the world of public transport, services are what counts. Infrastructure is important, but ultimately, infrastructure is only built to enable services. If the train only runs every 40 minutes, it’s a long wait whether the station is 100 years old, or shiny brand new. Today is State Budget day, and it’s a good chance ... [More]
I think this is quite clever. When trains or trams are partially closed for planned works, generally the less of the route is disrupted, the better. But this is always limited by the placement of turnaround facilities. Witness the current Sandringham line closure: the major works are at South Yarra, but because (despite what was ... [More]
Saturday’s Federal Election result might have been unexpected by many, but it underscores the Coalition’s illogical obsession with East West Link. Well, illogical from a transport planning perspective that is. Remember, it’s got a business case that says it will lose money – unless you include Wider Economic Benefits with which the Victorian Auditor General ... [More]
I don’t often write about climate change, but here are a few thoughts as we go into the Federal election on Saturday. But first I need to get these points out of the way: Climate change is real. If you think climate change is a hoax because you think you know more than the 97% ... [More]
Improving my house’s heating and cooling and energy efficiency is an ongoing project. 2008 Solar hot water 2012 Ceiling fans and roof insulation 2015 External blinds 2017 Air-conditioning (a backwards step for energy efficiency, but a giant leap for comfort on very hot days) This week it was wall insulation. Obviously this is best fitted ... [More]
A short rant. It’s Saturday, and I’m driving in heavy traffic. I’m making a trip that’s impractical using any other mode, alongside thousands of others, many also making trips impractical using any other mode. It’s not about options along that particular stretch of road. It’s about the whole transport network, supporting people’s trips end to ... [More]