YEARS ago, it might have been strange to think the fortunes of a government could rest on a suburban railway line. That was before the last Victorian election, when the Frankston train line became a potent symbol of the Brumby government’s transport woes: overcrowded carriages, ageing infrastructure, myki cost blowouts. Labor hardheads call it the ... [More]
Tag: public transport
I’m a bit bemused by the apparent mass surprise of people that Myki cards expire. Every other type of smartcard expires. Credit cards get replaced every 3-4 years. Despite the system cost, Myki cards don’t magically last forever. (Pic courtesy of Colin Fry) Right from when the system first went into live pilot in Geelong ... [More]
Back in 2010, Victorian government timetable data was released to the public, as part of the App My State competition. The PTUA submitted an app as part of a study that showed how bad train/bus connections were, which got some media attention — and also managed to progress the debate around connections: the government went ... [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]
The Federal government’s High Speed Rail study assumes a route from Melbourne via Canberra to Sydney of between 823 and 842 km (mostly following existing highways), with trains reaching up to 350 km/h, and a three hour trip time from Melbourne to Sydney. Some people who argue against the idea like to claim there is ... [More]
This seems to cause endless confusion: A figure of 798 (or 133 per carriage) is often incorrectly implied to be the capacity of a Melbourne train. According to Victorian government standards, a six-carriage train is considered “full” if more than 798 passengers are aboard. — Age 17/5/2011: Peak-hour trains still a horror trip But 798 ... [More]
My best guess is that PT fares are expected to jump by about 7% on January 1st. They generally go up by CPI (which the ABS says was 2.0% in the year to the end of September) but as part of a two year plan originally hatched by the ALP and followed by the Coalition, ... [More]
From December 29th, a month from today, basically all metropolitan public transport will require a Myki card, following the government decision in June 2011 to not implement short term tickets. I expect regular users will adapt. Most of them already have. It’s the occasional users (and that includes locals as well as tourists) who will ... [More]
Southland station makes sense. The rail line runs adjacent to the west side of the centre. It’s the kind of destination midway along the line which can boost patronage (eg get people out of cars) without putting pressure on peak hour services. “But…” FAQs It’s too close to Highett/Cheltenham! — no, it’d be about 1.2km ... [More]
Update: Since 2016, Myki top-ups have been sped-up, and are now done within about 90 minutes. This is a question that seems to come up continually, and from what I hear, the Myki Call Centre aren’t covering themselves in glory in trying to explain it: Why does Myki online topup take 24 hours or more? ... [More]
At railway stations around Melbourne, they’ve started removing Metcard validators as part of the final switch to Myki. In some cases, some station entrances have no Metcard validator at all now. In theory this doesn’t affect many people, as it’s been several months since multi-trip Metcards were sold, and also since unvalidated single trip Metcards ... [More]
I ran into friend and blog commenter Andrew W on the train last week, and we were chatting about the Dandenong South crash. I noted that the design of the train hadn’t really been remarked upon in coverage of the accident, and being the knowledgeable person that he is, he was able to tell me ... [More]