End of week brief things
ABC Childcare is in big financial trouble, has been for weeks. The crazy thing is childcare is in heavy demand, and there are government subsidies which should make it all very profitable. I guess not if your childcare company gets too ambitious and borrows heavily to expand and then comes up against a worldwide financial crisis.
In March I wrote about Neville and Pat, who sold their centre to ABC. Given it’s now on the list of centres in doubt, maybe they should buy it back now at a bargain price, Packer/Bond-style.
I think phones could do with an address book search-by-number facility. It’d be the easiest way of telling from looking at a phone bill, who you called.
Being a St George customer, I’ve traditionally had less choice of ATMs than back in the days when I was a Comm Bank customer. But the St George/Westpac merger means that from 1st December, people with cards from either can use both banks’ ATMs at no extra cost. Cool. (I still find it hard to believe they’ll keep all the branches open indefinitely though.)
I’ve not shopped at Harvey Norman for years after hearing horror stories about their after-sales service. Gerry Harvey’s comments earlier this week that donating to charity is “just wasted” certainly won’t have me going back any time soon.
PS. Sunday — Gerry Harvey clarified his position in this article.
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Parking on the pavement
It’s easy to see why motorcycles are offered free kerb parking around the CBD. They take up less space on the road, and (with typically one rider, not much difference to the 1.22 average people per car) burn less fuel and generate less emissions than cars (though more per person than public transport, cycling or walking).
In fact, according to the MCC web site on the topic, Melbourne is the only capital city in Australia where motorbikes can be parked on the footpath (with three specific exceptions where it is banned).
And most motorcyclists park thoughtfully, minimising disruption to other footpath users.
But…
If the CBD keeps getting busier… with more and more pedestrians (and motorbike riders), is it practical to continue taking up footpath space with them?
It’s already apparent that during busy times such as the lunch hour, pedestrians (which per square metre are the most space-efficient way of travelling short distances) are competing for footpath space with motorbikes in some places.
(Note the second bike in the first picture. Click to zoom)
In one case I spotted a three-wheel motortrike thing that was as big as a Smart car, parked on the footpath in Collins Street.
I wonder if at some point, as CBD pedestrian numbers continue to grow, the guidelines will be tightened, with some of the busier areas reserved for pedestrians only, and eventually motorbike parking allowed only in specific areas? More car spaces could be given over to the motorbikes if this happens.
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Who to vote for, part 2
This survey of candidates was not on behalf of the PTUA.
I’ve got responses back from four of the council candidates for Tucker ward in Glen Eira.
All four responded positively when asked about transport (in particular public transport) issues. A number of them highlighted the issue of a lack of direct bus service from Bentleigh/McKinnon to Southland, which is interesting. I’d rather see Southland Station built; knowing how Melbourne’s typical bus services end up, it would provide a quicker link, more frequent services and longer operating hours than just about any Melbourne bus service would. I might talk to each of them about that.
They all highlight bus as well as train issues, thus showing an awareness of issues that aren’t getting the mass media spotlight. They all agree with the 68% of Melburnians who surveyed by The Age recently said PT investment should take priority over roads. Hardly surprising I suppose; Glen Eira already has a very mature road system, and space for widening/freeways doesn’t exist, not without bulldozing homes.
Theo Giantos is quite obviously more annoyed than the others by the lack of state government action. But there’s actually little else to separate these four, and based on these responses, I’d happily vote for any of them, subject to looking at their other policies and their How To Vote cards to work out if any of them are “dummy” candidates.
There are three vacancies, so I hope three of them get up over the others, whose lack of response makes their positions unclear to me.
I’ve summarised their responses below.
Read more
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155 litres a day
There’s a bit of fuss about the new water target of 155 litres per person per day.
(It seems particularly fussing were people on talkback radio with big families who couldn’t quite grasp that it’s per person not per household.)
I have an efficient shower head, and generally have sub-4-minute showers, and have a garden that doesn’t need watering — except the shower warmup-time grey-water which goes on the lawn. I don’t know how the nature strip and front lawn stay so green.
The car, naturally, never gets washed, though I occasionally use a little water to remove bird poo. The toilets are both dual-flush, though not particularly new/super-efficient.
Each week the washing machine runs perhaps 5 times; the dishwasher 2-3 times, hand washing the other stuff 2-3 times (though I confess recently I managed to go a full week without handwashing anything).
The result?
According to my last water bill, our household sits at 207 litres per day. Domestic arrangements mean there are 13 “person nights” spent in the house per week, so unless my maths is askew, that’s 111.5 litres per person per day. And that’s almost without even trying.
So a target of 155 per person per day? No big issue… at least, not for me. Though I’m sure it’s harder for households with thirsty gardens and where lots of people are at home all day.
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Who to vote for?
This Saturday is local council election day. Only nine councils are doing voting in person — all the rest have switched to postal voting.
I’m lucky enough to be voting in person. Oh sure, sending in an envelope might be more convenient. But I’ll be getting to peruse the cake stall and buy a sausage. So who’s laughing now?
In Tucker Ward we have 11 candidates for 3 positions. The only problem is I don’t know any of them, or what they stand for. So I don’t really know who to vote for.
So today I emailed all 11 candidates with a set of questions. (Their addresses are Predictably for me, I concentrated on transport issues. I’ll post later in the week when I get some responses (one back so far).
And I’d encourage everyone to similarly think about the issues that matter to you, and email your local candidates to see if they are worthy of your vote.
- For those interested in transport issues in the City of Melbourne: PTUA Scores Lord Mayor Candidates
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Look out before you step out
A reminder in this morning’s paper of why you should look before you step out of a tram:
The 12.14am kid arrives, the blue light case. The paramedics got him in quicker than 15 minutes. He’s a mess. He’s collided with a car allegedly travelling 70 km/h in Preston as he stepped out of a tram into the rain with a mate, on his way home from a night out on the drink. Dr West wants us to take a close look not because he’s been the victim of CBD violence but because his terrible injuries are instructive.
He has a fractured skull, possible brain damage and blood in a lung. Paramedics say his head hit the windscreen, which shattered.
Morons on the road lurk everywhere.
While tram platform stops have largely taken over at the most visible tram stops around the CBD, at most locations in the suburbs there’s little or no protection — you just step out onto the street.
It’ll be decades before all those stops get upgraded. Personally I quite like the stop design used in Whitehorse Road in Box Hill, which physically prevents cars getting past. True, the motorists don’t like it, and it’s incompatible with Clearways. Tough luck; where possible motorists should be encouraged onto other roads. But I digress.
Meanwhile the visual prompt of a sign that sticks outwards when the doors open is difficult to fit to the newer trams, which have sliding doors.
Idiot car drivers ignoring the rules is nothing new of course. Just on ten years ago I berated a driver by phone for nearly knocking me down… while I was on crutches!
It seems that while traffic enforcement has improved in some areas (it seems like you can’t speed regularly these days without being caught), there’s been little progress on this — it’s been over five years since it was tram cameras were first proposed, and only started getting trialled last year… with no news on how that went.
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Nicknames
Flashback to a post I wrote about personal branding, in particular your name.
I suspect it’s something that happens as you get older, but sometimes I roll my eyes at people who persist in using nicknames on the Interwebs.
If it’s a nickname you’ve had In Real Life, then fair enough. But otherwise?
Why use it online if you’d never call yourself that elsewhere?
It’s true, for a few years around my early-20s, I used one: Raymond Luxury-Yacht, after the character in Monty Python who declares his name is actually pronounced “throat-wobbler mangrove”.
(That sketch is one of a handful that had me literally rolling on the floor with uncontrollable laughter the first time I saw it.)
These days assuming someone isn’t trying to deliberately hide their identity for some reason, nicknames just seem a bit… well… silly.
I’m not talking about the name of a blog/web site, or contractions of a Real Name, but a completely made-up nickname for no reason other than it sounds good.
Does anybody go the whole hog and use deed poll to change their Real Name to their Net name?
It’s another of these things which is down to personal choice, I suppose. And maybe of course I’m turning into an old man.
Expecting some interesting comments from those who use nicknames here!
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Eastlink’s snarls are by design
From today’s Herald Sun:
A NEW report has told us what motorists already know – the southern end of EastLink is a traffic disaster.
…Toll company ConnectEast is suffering a $227,000 a day shortfall in EastLink tolls it expected to rake in.
Trading in the company’s shares remains halted ahead of a company announcement expected today.
Massive traffic queues stretching up to 2.5km long were found along the Frankston Freeway. The queues have grown by 500m in the past year, the report says.
The Moorooduc Highway-Cranbourne Rd intersection is the culprit.
…But actual traffic at the intersection has only grown by 2 per cent, or 1000 vehicles a day, since EastLink opened.
And it goes on to talk about the proposed Frankston bypass.
This is total bollocks.
It’s not like nobody saw this coming. If the Frankston end is choked with traffic despite Eastlink volumes being so much lower than expected, it must have been obvious that it would be a “problem” there. Especially as during peak times (eg long weekends) there have been
queues driving south into Frankston on the freeway for years, long before Eastlink was built.
(I remember start/stop traffic heading down there in 2002 … I slowed down and tried surfing it — eg driving slowly enough that you don’t have to stop. It seemed to work quite well.)
If a mere 2 per cent increase in traffic at the southern end of the Frankston Freeway has resulted in long queues, then it was always going to happen, and those who advocated for the Scoresby/Eastlink to be built knew that right from the start. They got it built knowing it would add to pressure for the next big motorway project.
In fact the Hoddle Street end of the Eastern Freeway is the same. The Eastern was built in the 70s, after it was known that it would finish at Hoddle Street, with no westwards extension ploughing through Fitzroy and Carlton. The predictable snarl at Clifton Hill is precisely what they knew would happen — but is now used to lobby for the multi-billion-dollar east-west tunnel.
Eastlink is just another motorway which has — yet again — failed to fix the traffic as promised, and therefore the roads lobby are arguing to build the next one.
Make no mistake, the Frankston bypass will be a taxpayer funded $700 million (or maybe even double that) bailout of Eastlink.
Eastlink is a private company. Their investors got in knowing the risks. No way should they be bailed out so that traffic can increase (and emissions with it), and they can make a profit.
- Wow, I just noticed my post about Eastlink when it opened, though predicted a different reason for (longer-term) failure: …with Vicroads data showing rising petrol prices are reducing road demand, instead it may become a multi-billion dollar white elephant.
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