From next Saturday, 1st of March, smoking will be banned from the entirety of all railway stations and tram platform stops. The new arrangements will extend the existing smoke-free zones, which currently only include covered areas of railway platforms and inside covered tram and bus shelters. โExtending smoke-free areas is good news for public transport ... [More]
Categories
Names from the past
The neurosurgeon attacked at Footscray Hospital was Dr Michael Wong, aged 43. I went to school with a Michael Wong; presumably he’d be 43. Digging around, I haven’t found any other detail to confirm or deny it’s the same bloke (there are tons of Michael Wongs, even just in Melbourne, and my usual method of ... [More]
There’s been some speculation about who is running the SpringStSource Twitter account and web site. The web domain name is registered through WhoIsGuard, a Panama-based service specifically for hiding details of people who want to remain anonymous. It’s not hard to see whoever is behind it is well and truly on the side of the ... [More]
For this month, I don’t have very many great photos of interest, but here goes… We must have been on the way to Marita’s house in Footscray. This is the Footscray Road intersection with Citylink, back when there was a level crossing underneath the tollway, where slow freight trains used to run in and out ... [More]
The Public Transport Not Traffic campaign held their PT To Parliament event on Thursday morning. Locals were encouraged to invite their local MPs to catch public transport with them into Parliament House, and discuss PT issues with them along the way. My local MP, Elizabeth Miller, was sadly unavailable. So we invited ALP opposition candidate ... [More]
A while back I had a read through the PTV rail network plan looking to summarise their view on the rollout of high capacity (in-cab) signalling. Sorry this post has been so long in coming. This short (three minute) video explains it nicely, but one analogy is that the current system is like driving around ... [More]
This Friday 7th February is Melbourne’s re-tune day for digital television. This is when the frequencies of some channels change, so they can make more efficient use of the spectrum. If you don’t re-tune your digital TV devices, you may find some channels don’t work after this. Hopefully most people will figure out how to ... [More]
Categories
For sale: Idyllic home
What do you think of this house for sale? Inner-city location, described by the real estate agents as an “Idyllic home/Office”. Very cute. Wait a minute. Zoom out. Zoom out a bit more. Turns out it’s on Kings Way, dwarfed by surrounding buildings, and almost drowning in passing traffic. It reminds me a bit of ... [More]
Interesting article: PSOs do little for train passenger confidence: Data from a survey conducted by the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency shows in 2012-13, 24.2 per cent of Victorians reported feeling safe or very safe on public transport at night. This was a small increase on the previous year, in which 23.7 per cent ... [More]
These days, some people are so addicted to their portable reading devices that they barely look where they’re going.
The 601 Monash University express shuttle service runs every four minutes during semester time weekdays. It provides a high-frequency, rapid connection from the station to the university campus. Thanks to good publicity from the University, it has a high level of awareness among students and staff, and is used for tens of thousands of trips ... [More]
In the face of Labor’s proposal for 24-hour trains and trams at weekends, the State Coalition has been talking up its credentials in public transport. This tweet from Acting Public Transport Minister David Hodgett for example: Only the Coalition can be trusted to deliver better public transport for Victoria: 1,078 extra metro trains &3,870 extra ... [More]