Tony Abbott apparently doesn’t just think more roads can solve traffic, he actually thinks tarmac and cars smothering our cities makes them more liveable. Melbourne suffered traffic gridlock yesterday. It’s very important that the national government fund nationally important infrastructure. I have committed an incoming Coalition government to spending $1.5 billion to kickstart the East ... [More]
Tag: roads
Is this Melbourne’s narrowest bike lane? What exactly is the point here? I wonder if it actually offers cyclists any safety if they have to move out into traffic every time there’s a parked car? I’m not sure that it inspires me as a prospective cyclist. Pic from Brewer Road, Bentleigh. I thought Neerim Road ... [More]
There you go; the RACV said again yesterday (as they have done in the past) that the $1.4 billion M1/Westgate Bridge upgrade (including the new lanes opened yesterday) will be swamped within a decade. Brian Negus, of the RACV, welcomed the opening of the fifth lane. It was the final link in the freeway corridor ... [More]
If you’ve had Ernst Wanke Road catch your eye when you were looking at Berwick in the map, and wondered “what the?”, then wonder no longer. The Wanke Family: Settlers From the German States Ernst Gottlieb Wanke was a Doctor of Dentistry and was born in around 1821 in Prussia. The Wanke family arrived in ... [More]
As reported in The Age, the US Health Effects Institute recently published a report on the effects of living near busy roads. Its conclusion was that: …there is sufficient evidence that exposures to traffic-related air pollution cause asthma exacerbation in children and suggestive evidence that they might cause other health effects. …the zones most impacted ... [More]
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Hello, Sunday drivers
I’ve become something of a Sunday driver since I no longer generally drive anywhere on weekdays. But I’d like to think I’m better than the stereotype. Out and about yesterday, I’m just staggered by the number of people not paying attention, or wilfully ignoring the rules, or apparently ignorant of the rules. Ms Old Bomb ... [More]
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What was yesterday?
Yesterday was the 5th of April. It was Easter Monday, a public holiday in Victoria. Most businesses were closed. When it comes to the shops, it looked like a Sunday: most smaller ones closed, most bigger ones open. (Not like Good Friday and Easter Sunday when everything’s closed.) Schools were all closed, but they’re in ... [More]
This is not progress. This is the corner of Flinders Lane and Spring Street, in the CBD. Should be a priority pedestrian area — it’s certainly flagged that way under the SmartRoads strategy. But the zebra crossing that was here before has been removed and replaced with a traffic light. Which means that while before ... [More]
For a while now, VicRoads has been working on a plan to allocate different priorities to different roads around Melbourne. Rather than the free-for-all we sometimes see now, some roads would be setup to emphasise pedestrian priority, some bus, some tram, and some would be “preferred traffic routes” and lesser “other traffic routes”. I suspect ... [More]
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Hector the Cat
Teaching kids to cross the road safely is a matter of laying out the basic rules, and continual practice. I’d thought over the years it might be easier if the Hector The Cat song was still run on TV, as the lyrics helps make it easy to remember what to do. Happily, thanks to YouTube, ... [More]
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So much for carpooling
Cynics have described carpooling as “a transit system with one round trip a day” — which means that while the trip itself may be faster and more comfortable, in terms of scheduling it’s less convenient than all but the very very worst public transport. Even if you don’t believe that, it would appear that any ... [More]