Categories
Toxic Custard newsletter transport

Traffic light programming, and the tale of the Magic Laptop

The Magic Laptop One evening many years ago some PTUA bods and I were meeting with a Vicroads bloke about traffic light priority and other related issues. He had a laptop with him, and it displayed a diagram of a major intersection; I think it was somewhere out on Burwood Highway. While pondering topics such  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Some thoughts on CBD street design and safety

Thursday’s awful incident brings back memories of January’s attack, and authorities are rightly saying that it will be investigated from all angles. One issue is road infrastructure that allows a vehicle to reach high speed in a constrained, pedestrian-dense area like Flinders Street. The speed limit is 40. But apart from the placement of tram  ... [More]

Categories
Europe 2017 ???????????????????? Toxic Custard newsletter walking

Brussels has zebra crossings. Lots and lots of zebra crossings. Could we have more too?

One of the things I found fascinating about Brussels on our recent holiday was – in contrast to Cardiff – how they’ve gone out of their way to make life easy for pedestrians. Most striking was that there were zebra crossings. Lots and lots of zebra crossings. When I first spotted how many there were,  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Congestion is not the enemy

This in the Herald Sun a few weeks ago: Melbourne traffic congestion on par with world’s biggest cities like London, Rome and New York (paywall): TRAFFIC congestion in Melbourne is on par with New York and could rival the world’s worst cities if nothing is done to combat the problem. Figures supplied by Tom Tom  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Surprise surprise, expanding the Dingley Bypass caused more traffic

Remember the Dingley Bypass? The western end was built as the “South Road Extension” as two lanes (one each way) just last decade. It mostly wasn’t dual carriageway, but it was otherwise suspiciously freeway-like. Having appeared in the 1969 freeway plan, it wasn’t difficult to see that it would be expanded. (Dingley Arterial 2015 –  ... [More]

Categories
Toxic Custard newsletter transport

Barred from Bayswater – that escalated quickly

I’d been reading this article about the proposal to narrow a section of Mountain Highway through Bayswater when the level crossing is removed — from 3 lanes in each direction down to 2. Bayswater state Liberal MP Heidi Victoria has submitted the petition against the plans to State Parliament and urged the Government to intervene.  ... [More]

Categories
transport

The “tradies” argument for more roads

The argument for more/bigger roads (particularly motorways) is often that tradies and others need to carry their tools and equipment to jobs, so they can’t use public transport. Perhaps that’s true, but they are the minority of people on the road. According to a 2012 ABS study, only about 7% of people avoid using public  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Domain tunnel closed. Gridlock? What gridlock?

GRIDLOCK will begin to choke Melbourne’s roads from Friday night, but the full impact of bridge and tunnel closures for maintenance won’t bite until the New Year. Motorists are being advised to steer clear of the city, or they could experience delays of up to an hour. — Herald Sun: Traffic chaos expected as West  ... [More]