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]
Leader Newspapers is reporting that Myki topups will be allowed on buses from next month. A maximum of $20 will apply. Well, that’s about time. This is good news for passengers. Firstly, it means the Myki consoles will be activated, with Metcard equipment removed. The coexistence of the two systems has caused a lot of ... [More]
For the second time in a week, I’ve watched as tonight’s 6:31pm route 703 bus pulls out just as the train (due at 6:30pm) departs Bentleigh station and a crowd of people off the train approaches the stop. Now, I accept that buses should run to time. And the operator contract probably penalises late-running (bearing ... [More]
It’s long been a bugbear of mine that a vehicle that has correctly stopped in a legal parking/stopping position should not use its hazard lights. Some buses do this, despite being stopped in proper bus zones. Melbourne Bus Link appears to be one company whose buses mostly do this. Most buses from other operators seem ... [More]
Many years ago the German city of Munster set up a photo comparing the road space taken by people in a bus, on bikes, and in cars. Earlier this month the Cycling Promotion Fund recreated that picture in Canberra, and yesterday they released it. On Sunday 9th September 69 volunteers, 69 bicycles, 60 cars and ... [More]
This was the scene at Ventura’s South Oakleigh bus depot on Sunday afternoon: This was the scene on-board their 903 service from South Oakleigh (next to the depot) to Chadstone: The 903 is only half-hourly on Sundays, but clearly the demand is there. It’s the same with many bus services across Melbourne — there are ... [More]
There used to be realtime train information displayed on the Smartbus sign outside Bentleigh station (as there is at many other Smartbus stops near railway stations around Melbourne). The information was provided partly for the benefit of bus drivers, so they could see if a train was imminent, and if so wait for passengers (though ... [More]
A few pics from recent days. It’s kind of nice that the Tourist “Shuttle” bus gives tourists the thrill of a hook turn Fog at Bentleigh station on Wednesday morning Gleaming rails near Southern Cross Station — on the left you can see the Regional Rail Link under construction Plaques in Melbourne Central (formerly Museum) ... [More]
Another in a series of posts about Perth PT and how it relates back to Melbourne. Perth’s city centre (and town centres of Fremantle and Joondalup) have CAT buses — Central Area Transit — free services running (reasonably) frequently in loops that people can hop on, hop off to get around. They are very popular; ... [More]
I was interested to see this post complaining about Brisbane bus services to the University of Queensland. In this Courier Mail article it appears that the most overcrowded bus services in Brisbane all serve university precincts. My dad was editor of the UQ student newspaper Semper Floreat in 1951. UQ has recently put many (possibly ... [More]
A few years ago they fixed what was probably Melbourne’s most confusing bus route, but plenty of others are still running confusing, spaghetti-like routes around the suburbs. Often your trip from A to B travels via the rest of the alphabet. A PTUA report out today tries to measure how much buses meander, by comparing ... [More]
Sometimes it seems there are way more trains running in the counter-peak direction than the peak… particularly towards the end of the morning peak, and before the evening peak. This is because there’s little train stabling in the central city area, so most trains have to be sent back to the burbs between the peaks. ... [More]