The other week I experienced a Myki triple-whammy. Three modes, three stuff-ups. Tram (one with all Metcard equipment removed) â at least one reader that was initially out of service… another was running, but was incredibly slow. Bus (ditto; no Metcard equipment on-board) â one reader near the back door not working or switched-off (display ... [More]
Tag: public transport
I was pondering awareness of a couple of things, so decided to try a quick online survey. Over about 24 hours it got just over 100 responses… unfortunately unless I pay SurveyMonkey $19 per month, they’ll only tell me about the first 100. I think I’ll just go with those for now. (Some people didn’t ... [More]
Isaac just turned 18. (Yeah, I know.) Anyway, I was talking to him about getting a photo ID that shows his age, so (if he should choose to) he can exercise his rights as an adult. Many his age would get a Learner’s permit as part of learning to drive. But he has zero interest ... [More]
The Frankston line is to get upgrades worth $100 million — signalling changes to allow X’Trapolis trains to run, more shelter at stations, better CCTV, and better passenger information, including about connecting buses and trams. The Premier, Public Transport Minister, local (Coalition) MPs, heads of PTV and Metro and even the Mayor of Glen Eira ... [More]
A regular suggestion that pops up is that Melbourne’s zone 2 should be merged with zone 1, making the whole metropolitan area a single zone. No surprise that everybody wants cheaper fares… but is it a good idea? No shortage of footy fans on the trains on ANZAC Day, in part thanks to discount fares ... [More]
The Phase 2 Report from the High Speed Rail study was released last week — predicting that although HSR would cover its recurrent (running/maintenance) costs, it’d first take some $114 billion and 45 years to build it. As I’ve said before, I think a 3-ish hour trip from Melbourne to Sydney would be time-competitive with ... [More]
A lot of the unfortunate jellybean characters are depicted around CBD railway stations at the moment as part of Metro’s Dumb Ways To Die campaign. I was amused at the placement of this one: …but this one is even better. (Only a short video — don’t bother with the sound; it adds nothing.) Perhaps I’m ... [More]
It’s inevitable that the passing of Margaret Thatcher would provoke mixed responses. Such polarising figures often do. She may have been a trailblazer for women in power in the western world, but I don’t remember her time as Prime Minister fondly. I was young and perhaps it was a naive viewpoint, but I remember the ... [More]
“We spoke to Infrastructure Australia and their advice was that the most pressing road priority in Melbourne was the east-west link,” Mr Abbott told reporters in Frankston on Thursday. “Now the Commonwealth government has a long history of funding roads. We have no history of funding urban rail and I think it’s important that we ... [More]
Guess what? Another bug has been found in Myki. (No, this is not an April Fool’s joke.) You know how you can load a Pass (weekly, month, yearly etc) onto your Myki, and use it, and load a second Pass which won’t activate until the first one has finished? Well there’s a bug which sometimes ... [More]
Mr Lezala also took a swipe at the State Government for failing to invest properly in signalling. “We have new signalling systems here … with no redundancy in them so when we get a thunderstorm it fails – brand new systems – because we didn’t have enough money to build redundancy in,” he told a ... [More]
I had been writing a blog post about proposed rail lines, and even went to the trouble of drawing a map of what was known about the various proposals floating around. Yesterday a very detailed PTV Network Development Plan for the rail network was released with lots of much prettier and more comprehensive maps. The ... [More]