The other day, local Federal Liberal candidate (and Finance spokesman) Andrew Robb’s minions had left signs at the station, but apparently didn’t have the nerve to actually face people and try and sell their policies… which of course include refusing to fund urban public transport. Mind you, Robb’s campaigners were out at the station a ... [More]
I found myself at a party recently chatting about public transport. Not just late trains and packed trams, but specifically buses. Who said buses aren’t interesting to anybody? It was in the broader context of sustainable transport in the inner-north, but one of the anecdotal snippets was this: one of the people I was chatting ... [More]
Tony Abbott is determined to throw billions at the East West road tunnel if he’s elected, despite not having seen the business case. The public hasn’t seen the business case. Neither has Tony, as it turns out. But he has faith. He believes it exists. I mean, there are lots of things that I haven’t ... [More]
The entire country converted to Compact Fluorescent Light-globes years ago, which is great, as they use much less energy and have a longer life. Well, if you use them properly. For instance I don’t use CFLs in the bathroom/toilet, as these lights are generally on for short periods of time, and CFLs are better when ... [More]
Look, if you’re going to send around party political propaganda, you should at least have the guts to not disguise it as something else. This arrived in the mail yesterday: …and inside was this: I note that in their brochure, they’re still using the rail icon, despite repeatedly proclaiming that they will not fund urban ... [More]
Abbott’s outright refusal to fund urban public transport (while throwing billions into motorways) hasn’t won him any friends here. Make sure your vote counts.
For some years now we’ve named our home computers after characters in Tintin. First we had Tintin and Snowy, both desktops. Snowy was replaced with Haddock. The two of them were joined for a little while by Nestor, which was called that because it was a server. Haddock broke down (probably a motherboard failure, I ... [More]
While the East-West tunnel has got a lot of attention, another questionable transport project is lurking in the background. Every so often someone will take a look at cities with ferries and conclude that Melbourne needs them too, despite the radically different geography to somewhere like, for instance, Sydney or Brisbane. And they forget that ... [More]
I’ve got a small lump on my thigh. Not painful at all. Probably harmless, the GP said, but he wrote me a referral to get it removed. He asked if I private health insurance. Nope. I gave it up several years ago. It cost me thousands each year (and increasing) and rarely paid out anything ... [More]
I had a second wisdom tooth out on Saturday — bottom left, the counterpoint for the top left which I had extracted back in 1998. The dentist had said it was best it came out now. It was moving upwards anyway, due to no pressure from the top left one. Worse, cleaning around it was ... [More]
Another in my collection of photos from ten years ago… Murrumbeena, in the days of M>Train. I quite liked the logo and slogan (“Moving Melbourne”) — less sure about the colours, and of course the splitting of the network into different operators was silly. 2003 was probably the best fall of snow at Mount Donna ... [More]
How often does the Myki reader in the middle at the main entrance to Bentleigh station break down? Thanks to my archive of Tweets, the answer is: at least seventeen times since the start of 2010. Two of three #Myki scanners at Bentleigh stn this morning were inoperable, displaying this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielbowen/4544311585/ — Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) ... [More]
Drain has been blocked for a while. Sometimes it clears itself. Not this time. I couldn’t find the plumber’s details from last time, and ended up ringing Drains Direct. (How could I blog the plumber’s visit, yet not keep track of his contact details? How stupid of me.) 8am. Plumber arrives. Wants to look at ... [More]
If you missed it in the Sunday debate, or yesterday on social media, here’s the 30 second summary of Tony Abbott’s transport policy.
The government argues that cross-city traffic is so critical that the they want to (without a mandate) spend $8 billion building just the first phase of the East-West tunnel. If that’s the case, then why does the newly remodelled (2008-2010) M1 corridor only provide two lanes in each direction for those cross-city trips? Eastbound (coming ... [More]
One thing I really really hate about spammers is how they often insist on the bottom of their email that you’re receiving their crap because you subscribed to it. They know it’s not true. I know it’s not true. Along the same lines are these types of letters, one of which I received yesterday. The ... [More]