Here is my collection of Australian public transport smartcards. The ones I’m missing are Adelaide, Canberra and Tasmania — all of which have been introduced since my last visits there. Notably Perth’s SmartRider is the only card that is blank on the back, which is why the card number (which I’ve blacked-out) is on the ... [More]
Continuing my series of old photos from ten years ago… Southern Cross Station under construction. The bridge with yellow on the right is the Collins Street extension, so this must have been snapped from close to where Etihad Stadium is. Note the “Park and Ride” sign, a misguided attempt to get people to drive most ... [More]
Last weekend I tried an experiment, for a PTUA video… In the highly marginal electorate of Bentleigh, having just missed the bus, is it quicker to wait for the next service, or walk to Southland? Given walking speeds and a five kilometre distance, perhaps the answer (at least for reasonably fit, able-bodied people) is obvious… ... [More]
A bunch of photos from the past week or so… OK Google, where’s the nearest rubbish bin? (If you haven’t heard, they’ve all been removed from CBD railway stations.) The trains were a real mess last Monday. This is the moment we all got kicked off a train at Richmond when it became faulty. The ... [More]
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The “tradies” argument for more roads
The argument for more/bigger roads (particularly motorways) is often that tradies and others need to carry their tools and equipment to jobs, so they can’t use public transport. Perhaps that’s true, but they are the minority of people on the road. According to a 2012 ABS study, only about 7% of people avoid using public ... [More]
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Metro Bingo :-(
Given the Flemington/Showgrounds line isn’t running this morning, and the Stony Point line has planned bustitution, I’m going to go ahead and declare that we have Metro Bingo this morning due to the storms. And no, it’s not much better on many of the roads. Good luck to everybody (myself included, shortly) trying to get ... [More]
High-frequency trains (all day, every day) are critical for any big city, to ensure large numbers of people can get around quickly and easily. As a PTUA study found some years ago, Melbourne is one of the few big world cities that doesn’t have them. To draw an analogy, it’s as if outside peak hour, ... [More]
You’d think from the tweets from Coalition MPs this morning that the arrival of the first X’trapolis train in service on the Frankston line was a miraculous huge leap forward for train travellers — a rocket-powered, laser-guided teleportation device that can get you to your destination in seconds. Great to travel in the new X'Trapolis ... [More]
I don’t seem to have many photos from October 2004 for my post of photos from ten years ago… it must have been a dry month. A slightly out-of-focus photo of the street sign in ACDC Lane, snapped a couple of weeks after it was renamed on October 1st 2004. It’s in the news this ... [More]
Five years ago today I posted this video: A Day on the Trains. The footage for it was gathered over the space of a month or two in the dying days of the Connex Melbourne Empire in late 2009, and it was designed to capture a few scenes I thought might be changing in the ... [More]
Since our last exciting episode, PTV have made a number of revisions to the draft rail map. Here’s the latest version: (Click to see it larger, and uncropped) As I said back in April, I really like this new design, which better represents how the rail network operates. Changes since that earlier draft that I ... [More]
This article by The Age’s Josh Gordon last week raises a really good point about the East West Link Stage 1 that needs to be remembered: The up-front cost of $2 billion contributed by the State is not the total actual cost to Victorians. It’s also not the construction cost — long thought to be ... [More]