Categories
transport

One look at the planned EW route shows why it would have made yesterday’s #Citylink mess worse, not better

The claims that the East-West link would somehow help the road network cope with yesterday’s horrible Citylink accident are truly mystifying. It really does appear as if the motorway boosters have tried to make use of this high-profile event to promote their cause in the hope that nobody thought too much about what they were  ... [More]

Categories
Travel

The long and winding road

We went to Walhalla for a night to camp on Sunday (it’s been about a year since last time). Apart from a little rain on the way up, nice weather — though a little hot when the sun got going. The rain didn’t affect the camp site when we were there, but had other consequences.  ... [More]

Categories
driving

Fast cars

I was trying to get some photos and/or video for a blog post I’m writing. I’m having trouble finding a source for part of the post, so in the meantime here’s a snippet of video from the pedestrian overpass above the Nepean Highway at Moorabbin. I might be wrong, but it does appear to me  ... [More]

Categories
driving

Special licence plates

The Wikipedia article on Australian licence plates highlights some special prefixes, but here’s a list I’ve tried to come up with that includes others they don’t show, from personal observations and gleaning information from the VicRoads web site. Some of them are clearly abbreviations for what they are… some not so much. AO (suffix) –  ... [More]

Categories
driving

The Rooster Tree

Those who regularly head up the Hume Freeway from Melbourne would know about this, but others may not: it’s the Rooster Tree. You’ll find it somewhere past Wandong and the exit for Clonbinane (which is one of those places I’ve never heard of apart from on the freeway exit signs), and it’s really only properly  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Why do some stopped buses use indicators, and some use hazard lights?

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]

Categories
transport

Weekend traffic congestion + more frequent services = PT getting competitive with driving

It used to be that on the weekends, trips by car could safely be assumed to be faster than those on public transport, particularly crosstown trips that required a change of service to complete. I’m not sure that’s always the case anymore. Over the weekend I took two crosstown train trips: Bentleigh to North Coburg  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Parking promotion: “Why are you still on the train?” Lots of reasons actually.

Someone was handing these out at Flagstaff station the other day. The bloke was in the exit area at ground-level, and was not on the public footpath. If it were Southern Cross station, where the security guards are super-vigilant about this kind of thing, he’d have been moved on unless he had a commercial arrangement  ... [More]

Categories
driving

Evidently car sharing is getting more popular

…judging from these four lined up next to Flagstaff Gardens. From the front: GoGet GreenCarShare (whose web site needs a going-over with a spell checker, and whose pricing rates need rationalisation with a hacksaw) Flexicar (I think they have two cars there) Unfortunately while they might be plentiful in the CBD and inner-suburbs, it might  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Fringe Benefits Tax craziness: driving, going nowhere

The old FBT company car rules resulted in some quite ridiculous outcomes. In fact they still do, because apparently they still apply for existing leases. Basically the rules meant that the further you drive, the less tax you pay. Which means people were strongly encouraged to drive long distances to save money — often driving  ... [More]

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