The Public Transport Not Traffic campaign organised a story in this week’s local paper, via campaigners Tony, Danita and Oscar setting up a fake bus stop to call for better bus services. Among the quotes in the story from locals is this one from me: “Bentleigh has less frequent buses than it did 25 years ... [More]
That seemed to be a bit more than your usual hailstorm. The sound on the video is quite distorted… obviously the poor phone couldn’t handle it.
Tackling the big issues today… Two different winter PT philosophies: That awkward moment when you sit on a seat that someone just got off and you feel their left-over bum heat on your bum — Mo on Twitter …compared to… Two people got off the train at Clifton Hill so I grabbed their seats… Benefit ... [More]
As time goes on, I learn more about the cluster headaches that hit me from time to time. They’re different for each person, obviously, but here’s what I know this time around, from my experiences and from my ongoing Googling research — and I must say, the online resources available have been steadily improving. The ... [More]
About a year ago, a group of us from the PTUA went on a tour of the Regional Rail Link, a massive 50 kilometre-long rail project providing new tracks from Southern Cross, via Footscray and Sunshine, then along a new corridor through Melbourne’s new outer-western suburbs to West Werribee. The project will provide extra track ... [More]
I and others have been known to call the East-West Link tunnel a zombie project — you can fight it off (as was done in the 70s) but it will never truly die. Last year at the launch for the Trains Not Tollroads campaign, Dr Sophie Sturup gave a great speech on mega projects. She ... [More]
Categories
Painting
Helping out at M+J’s house yesterday: The perils of paint rollers… splattering paint. Makes me wonder if my own house needs painting… Being weatherboard, the outside probably needs it more than the inside. I’m also moderately impressed at the amount of detail from the phone camera.
Do I win a prize? Following on from my photos a couple of years ago of a train, tram and bus in one shot, I’ve managed to get another (at the same location) of the three of them in the PTV livery. Common livery is not the most important thing in a public transport network, ... [More]
My precious Senz umbrella is gone. Left on the train to Frankston on Friday night. We’d had a delicious dinner at Shakahari in Carlton. Good food and laughs galore, and caught a tram back to Flinders Street. The train had just gone — 20 minute wait, so we took a quick walk around Fed Square ... [More]
The July 27th public transport network changes are pretty big. Some of the information is a bit vague, so here are some points I’ve gleaned from looking around, as well as chatting to Transdev, who run a lot of the bus routes that are changing. V/Line The big thing in rail is V/Line trains from ... [More]
Another in my series of old photos from ten years ago… In 2004 the situation with crowded trains hadn’t really hit as a big political problem, which is why it took until 2006 for the government to decide not to scrap all the Hitachi trains after all, but expand the fleet. It was certainly occurring ... [More]
We went to OzComicCon for the first time on Sunday. Here are some photos. It was at the Exhibition Buildings, and pretty much filled the space, both upstairs and downstairs, plus a couple of big tents outside, one of which included the main stage. Parts of it got quite crowded, and it was kind of ... [More]
In the days before home video, we had to resort to other means to re-live movies and TV shows. Novelisations of productions were common. I knew people who had hundreds of Doctor Who novelisations — virtually every story had a book published. I had perhaps a dozen. Other books made it into publication — scripts, ... [More]
As I’ve written already, both the Metro Rail Tunnel and the Melbourne Rail Link provide similar benefits in terms of rail capacity in the central part of Melbourne’s rail network. In those terms, they are roughly equivalent. But MRL does have problems. For example, I think it connects the wrong lines. Connecting lines Both MRL ... [More]
It’s easy when looking at aerial pictures to see the vast amounts of land taken up by freeway interchanges. (Pic: Google Maps) What is sometimes forgotten is the impact at ground level from elevated roadways. Here are some snaps from around South Melbourne — which of course being inner-city, has some of the most valuable ... [More]
Some bits of transport news worth noting today: July: new services The Herald Sun has the scoop on public transport service upgrades from late-July: Work commute eased as new train, tram, bus services announced (a very narrowly focussed headline given the upgrades benefit a lot more than 9-5 workers). Details are still a little sketchy, ... [More]