Could I get rid of my car?
As the purchase of new tyres and another regular service looms, I’ve been theorising: assuming worse-case scenario, that nothing else changes and there is no great revolution in public transport that sees the whole city given usable services to everywhere, could I get rid of my car without going crazy?
The main thing at the moment is getting the kids to school in the morning, which is far easier by car because of the distance involved and the lack of PT (that is without having to change services between a train and an infrequent half-hourly bus). Once they’re at high school (in 2, and 4 years respectively) they’ll be under their own steam, walking or riding their bikes.
My trip to work is a simple 10 minute walk and a train ride. Assuming that remains the same, no need for the car on most weekdays.
The problem would be evenings (the trains fall back to only half-hourly, most of the buses shut up shop) and weekends (trains barely adequate at every 20 minutes; buses pretty-much unusuable). Most of my family live nearby, or near railway stations, but other destinations would be awkward.
The bicycle’s a goer if the weather’s nice. Cycling and walking more would do my fitness the world of good.
For the rainy or rushed days there’s always taxis I suppose, and even with a few pricey cab fares a month, monetary wise I’d still be in front. Maybe if the suburb gets a little denser (in population growth, rather than mind power) a car-sharing service will open up nearby.
My conclusion is that unless we see much more frequent PT services, I would go crazy on the weekends, thus I’d keep the car for at least some trips.
Now, if we get hit by the sort of price-hikes in petrol expected to be prompted by Peak Oil. Petrol $2… $5… $10 per litre? Ka-ching! That might make a big difference.
PS. Combining both this topic and yesterday’s, I found some stuff I wrote about various “urban tribes” from when I was catching the tram to work ten years ago.
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Uniforms
Some people who wear uniforms (or other specialised clothing for work) are very obvious. The presence of police and other emergency service workers always makes me wonder what’s wrong. Other uniforms are less obvious.
Someone called Elly Lukas apparently runs a beauty school. There seems to be no end of girls with their hair tied up wearing Elly Lukas special beautician tops on the train and around Collins Street, nattering away to each other or sharing their iPod headphones.
Early morning and early afternoon you see tradies on the train, going to/from their early shifts. Painters whose clothes and shoes are thoroughly covered in paint. Some carrying gear with them, some not.
Around the suburbs, at least the well-to-do ones, you’ll see young adults going to and from their split-shift jobs, wearing polo shirts with the names of the outsourced school childcare operations, such as Camp Australia. Few of them seem to last long in those jobs, presumably being a stopgap, not very well paid and crap hours. (At least, early mornings involved, which personally I’d call crap hours.) They seem to have boundless enthusiasm though, which is good, since for many families, the children are entrusted to them for many hours a week.
In the streets of my suburb in the evenings and weekends, young people in black and white can be seen, walking to and from their after-hours jobs at Safeway. They usually don’t put on the tie/scarf until they get to work.
On CBD streets are charity collectors… though most of them seem to be overseas backpackers with a charity de jour du jour t-shirt on, armed with clipboards and collection tins. You can see them from a long way off because the t-shirts are invariably garish and don’t match the clothes they’re wearing.
I’m sure there’s plenty of others that I can’t think of right now.
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Chaos on Collins
Lunchtime Monday… maybe something burnt in the Australia on Collins Food Court?
I once asked a mate in the CFA about city fire calls. He said that though most are false alarms, they (obviously) take every one seriously, invariably sending multiple units screaming through the streets.
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Mulholland Drive
It’s been almost two years since we went looking unsuccessfully for Mulholland Drive on DVD. Kept looking for it during that time, but no luck, apart from one aged looking VHS copy spotted recently.
Finally though, a copy turned up on DVD. Oh, the anticipation.
By about midway through, I was beginning to wonder what the fuss was about, and starting to get suspicious that in David Lynch terms, this was not another Twin Peaks (which I loved), but rather more in the Eraserhead mould (which I loathed).
Now, I don’t mind things being all mixed up, and some confusion ensuing. I don’t mind having to think about what’s happening, rather than having it all spelt out for me. But with a movie that long, there has to be a reasonable pay-off for the time invested. I’m sorry, but “it was all a dream” is not a reasonable pay-off for two and a half hours of plodding narrative.
Oh, it was beautifully shot and acted, no doubt. But the words “prentious claptrap” don’t seem amiss here. I feel ripped off (and I didn’t even pay for the rental).
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Jumping sky high (and modified digital images)
I feel like I’m in the title sequence for The Goodies.
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Garbage day not every week
I have a big general rubbish bin, a paper recycling bin and a bottle recycling bin. They all get collected weekly, but I don’t put them out every week. I only put them out if they’re more than half full or have something smelly in them. Otherwise, why bother? Just wastes my time and the garbage truck driver’s. So typically each of them goes out every fortnight.
I figure if everyone did that, the portion of the rates for garbage collection might drop by, what… maybe a third?
Speaking of council services, you know you’re getting old when you glance at the new mayor in the local council newsletter and you think he looks so young he should still be in school.
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Aaron Sorkin, you are a genius
Have I mentioned how much I like The West Wing? It’s coming back onto Australian TV in a fortnight, at the rather more acceptable hour of 9:30 Thursdays on the ABC, starting with season 4.
The problem is I’m only two-thirds of the way through season 2 in the DVDs my sister lent me. Which means, if I want it to get it all right in sequence, I have fourteen days to get through twenty-eight episodes.
Time to go watch another one.
Update 11pm. 27 to go.
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Cool transport things
At the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan, they’ve built a copy of Flinders Street Station from ice:
(via Rod)
The Grauniad have done a London tube map of 20th century music.
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