The bike share scheme
Melbourne’s bike share scheme is meant to start today, and the bike stations have been going in. I found this one at Federation Square, evidently almost ready to go, the only thing missing is the bikes:
Curiously, just across the road outside St Paul’s Cathedral is another one.
I wonder what the bogans who often hang around there will think of it. I hope the bikes are tough.
The other initial locations are mostly around Swanston Street, with a couple up near Melbourne Uni, and one at Southbank. Apparently it will eventually spread to some fifty locations.
I’m maintaining my previous cynical view of it. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but I just don’t see who would use it.
If you’re a tourist, you won’t have a helmet. You can use one of the existing tourist-oriented bike hire vendors. (This scheme seems to be designed not to put them out of business.)
If you’re a Melbourne local who arrived in the city by PT, your trip around the CBD by tram or bus or train is included in the price of your ticket, and is probably more convenient by PT than bike. Why would you pay more, and carry a helmet to do it by bike?
If you arrived in the city by car, I really doubt you’ll be carrying a helmet and hiring a bike.
If you work close to the city in a spot not well-covered by PT (perhaps somewhere like Fishermen’s Bend), even if you did carry a helmet, unless your destination also has a bike share station, you’d pay a fortune to have the bike at work all day. You’re more likely to bring your own bike on the train.
There is one possible group I can see: CBD residents, but only if they are of the mind to ride a hired bike (not one they own themselves; perhaps if they have limited space in their flat), bring their own helmet, and if they are making a trip that was genuinely easier by bike than other means. And it would have to be a trip to the vicinity of another bike share station — all highly unlikely with the initial stations, given they’re almost all parallel to Swanston Street, which has a tram every minute or so.
The helmet thing — the government claims to have a solution: ”very cheap” helmets would be available to people who joined the bike scheme. He did not specify how much the helmets would cost. Helmets would also be available at city shops near the bike stations. But it’s not yet clear what this means: how much is “very cheap” and if that means shared helmets or buying a cheap one if you’ve forgotten to bring your own.
I may be proven wrong, but get the feeling the bike share scheme may turn out to be a big waste of (taxpayers’) money.
It’s part of the plan.
- Update lunchtime: The Age: On your bike: public hire scheme hits CBD — Melbourne is the only city in the world with compulsory helmet laws to have launched a bike share scheme.
People are such damn slobs
City of Melbourne have announced a change to the fines for littering smokers, with the fine going up to $234 for throwing away a lit cigarette.
Smokers or non-smokers, it just staggers me that some people are such slobs.
Regularly, I see footy-goers at the Parkside Edgewater oval (Maribyrnong) rock up to watch a local footy game, sit in their cars eating, and throw their food wrappers and bottles and other crap on the ground afterwards and just drive off. Absolutely breathtaking.
What the hell are they all thinking? Do they leave crap around their own homes as well?
Someone comes along in the following week and cleans it all up (probably at the expense of the local ratepayers), and then at the next game a week or two later, they do it again.
I mean, WTF?
(Dear City of Maribyrnong, if your officers want to earn some fine revenue for littering, Parkside Edgewater during a game is the place to be. But take back-up.)
Maybe it’s time to re-use those old 80s adverts that treat people like preschoolers idiots.
Or otherwise, perhaps the Doctor can do something about it.
Myki doesn’t always give you the best fare
One of the selling points of Myki is that ‘Myki Money’ will charge you the best daily fare, if you touch-on and touch-off on every trip.
It turns out not to be always true. There’s at least one specific set of circumstances where it doesn’t.
The PTUA got asked a while back about travel around the zone boundaries, and specifically on a scenario similar to that outlined below. (I think the lady actually travels in the Surrey Hills area.)
Here’s how it works on Metcard, using a 10×2 hour Zone 1 ticket, and a separate 10×2 hour Zone 2 ticket:
Mckinnon to Caulfield at 9:05am. (Z1 2 hour, expires midday. $2.94)
Caulfield to Mckinnon at 10:05am. (existing fare. $0.00)
Mckinnon to Moorabbin at 11:05am. (Z2 2 hour, expires 2pm $2.02.)
Moorabbin to Mckinnon at 12:05pm. (existing fare. $0.00)
Metcard total $4.96
Here’s how it works on Myki Money:
McKinnon to Caulfield at 9:05am. (Product: Z1 2 hour, expires midday. $2.94)
Caulfield to Mckinnon at 10:05am. (existing product. $0.00)
Mckinnon to Moorabbin at 11:05am. (Upgrades the existing product to Z1+2 2 hour, expires midday. $2.02.)
Moorabbin to Mckinnon at 12:05pm. (Product: Z2 2 hour, expires 3pm. $2.02.)
Myki total $6.98.
I’ve received confirmation from the TTA that the calculation above is correct: that is, when Myki upgrades your existing (and still valid) fare to cover a new zone, it has the same expiry as the original fare, rather than allowing you the full 2+ hours.
This means in the scenario above, a passenger would be charged more on Myki than on Metcard. The only workaround is to use two Myki cards – just as one would do now to obtain the cheapest fare.
Admittedly this is a specific set of circumstances which is probably quite rare, and it depends on no other travel that day that would incur extra charges.
But it does show that Myki doesn’t necessarily give you the best fare.
What they should probably do is have the additional Z2 fare have its own expiry time — at least when the relevant journey (McKinnon to Moorabbin) can be made under a single zone fare.
Tags: Myki, public transport
17 comments
The health check
Apparently there have been some alarming results from the workplace health checks underway at the moment.
Victorian workers have been given a scare by a State Government-run health program which has found a high percentage don’t exercise enough with a number of people asked to see a doctor within 24 hours.
We’ve had ours on Friday (everybody opted-in, I think), and we seem to be a pretty healthy workplace.
At least, nobody’s been carted off in an ambulance.
My own results were all okay, with one exception.
Some of the points are self-assessment; others like cholesterol were checked by the nurse on the spot. I’ve summarised the take-home brochure, and my results below.
Diet
2 serves of fruit and 5 serves of vegetables (per day) should be your target
I’m on 3 serves of fruit, and 2 of vegetables, so need to increase my vegetable intake. It was noted that a variety is good. I probably eat more spinach leaves than most, as I know the kids will chow them down.
In all honesty, I’m not sure how achievable 5 serves of vegies per day is for me, but I can try.
Drinking
I barely drink (perhaps a one standard drink per month if I’m lucky), and the nurse decided this was closer to no alcohol of the three options on the questionnaire.
I’ve never drunk a lot; it’s reduced even more since the cluster headaches arrived on the scene, as alcohol can help induce them (though just at the moment they’re not around).
Phsyical activity
Aim for at least 30 minutes of physical activity on most, preferably all days
I might not play sport, but I do a fair bit of walking. It’s generally three 30 minute walks a week with the kids, and one or two 60+ minute walks with Marita and her dog on the weekends. Add to that the shorter walks to/from the train each weekday (12 minutes x 2 x 5, though no doubt that doesn’t have the same benefits of the longer walks), that’s 270-330 minutes of walking per week, or at least 38 minutes a day.
So I think that’s fine.
Smoking
There is no safe level of smoking
No problemo. Never smoked, sure as hell not about to start.
Body shape
Normal — Men: 94 cm or less. Women: 80 cm or less
I’m 86 cm, have been since I was a skinny yoof. Do have a little bit of a pot belly, but nothing major.
Blood pressure
Normal — Less than 120/80
The brochure explains that the first value is systolic — the pressure in the arteries as your heart squeezes blood out during each beat. The other is diastolic — the pressure as your heart relaxes before the next beat.
Mine’s a little high: 113/83. On this basis there’s a recommendation to review it when I next see my doctor, but the nurse emphasised that there’s no real problem.
This seems higher than usual for me. Normally when I give blood it’s lower — it was 117/76 the last time I noted it in my blog. In fact this time round the nurse thought it might be unusual and did an average out of four readings.
Cholesterol
Normal — Total cholesterol 5.5 or less, HDL cholesterol 1.0 or more
Mine is 4.8 total, and 1.8 HDL, so that’s good.
Diabetes risk
Diabetes risk score — low risk: 5 or less. Medium risk 6-14. High risk 15 or more
Random blood glucose levels — normal: less than 6.5. High 6.5 or more
My diabetes risk score is 2 points for my age, 3 points for my sex (that would be male), and 3 points because someone in my family has it — my Dad has type 2. So 8 points makes me a medium risk for diabetes, and worth reviewing with my doctor at some stage.
My blood glucose level was 5.4, in the normal range.
Overall then
I’ll enquire about blood pressure and diabetes risk, the former isn’t a big problem at present, and the latter I can’t really do much about other than keep up the exercise and improve the diet.
I suppose there’s no big surprises for me in all this, but in terms of preventative health measures, I can see how this kind of far-reaching basic health check might help others to think about their lifestyle choices and modify them if possible.
And of course it’s only a fairly superficial check. I’ve still got headaches, Bowen Belly (much less so recently) and other minor ailments which hit me from time to time.
Anybody else do the check? Any surprises?
Tags: alcohol, blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, diet, Health, smoking, walking
12 comments
The moral quandary of the self-serve checkouts
At the local Safeway, the renovation (and eventual transition to “Woolworths”) is underway, and the self-service checkouts are now operating.
There’s five of them, compared to three express checkouts, and eight “normal” checkouts. From memory there used to be more normal checkouts, though as at most supermarkets, I don’t ever recall all of them being in use at once.
I suppose there’s something of a moral quandary about whether self-serve checkouts will cut the number of staff the supermarkets have to employ. I’m afraid my general philosophy is that if there are long queues, I’ll use whichever option is likely to get me out of there the quickest.
If there are no queues, the staffed checkout is likely to be quicker, as Safeway’s dedicated and tireless personnel are much more likely to know where all the barcodes are, and precisely which buttons to press to choose the butternut pumpkin (or whatever) off the fruit+veg menu.
But if the queues for staff are long, and particularly if I don’t have many items to buy, I reckon the self-serve is likely to be quicker. This goes doubly at places like Big W, because I’m usually not buying lots and lots of small items, and of course there is no fruit+veg — everything’s got a barcode.
So yesterday at Safeway I found myself with a basket full of about fifteen items (eg too many for the express lanes), two normal lanes open, both with 2-3 people queuing with very full trolleys. And no queue at the self-service checkouts (though one of them was out of order).
I chose the self-service, which no doubt was what Woolworths Corp had in mind all along.
Any guilt about putting Rowena (family friend who I occasionally encounter on the checkouts) or her cohorts out of a job was extinguished, this time, by the sheer amount of intervention required from the staff member on duty as I scanned my items.
Putting my green bag into the bagging area, and patting the bottom of it down with my hand to smooth it out set off the Incorrect Weight error, requiring assistance.
Trying to fiddle around to pack items neatly into the green bag also set off the error.
Accidentally double-clicking the Fruit+Veg button got the register to incorrectly charge my butternut pumpkin as mandarins, and reversing it required the staff member yet again.
All in all it probably took twice as long as a transaction handled fully by a human staff member, and certainly required a lot of intervention. I’m not sure if it got me out of the store more quickly than it would have if I’d queued, but I don’t think there was a lot in it.
I think in future unless (a) there’s a long queue for the human operators, (b) I’m buying only a handful of items, and (c) that includes nothing that has no barcode, I’ll avoid the self-service checkouts.
Blast from the past: found on the train
Found this on a train this afternoon:
I’m guessing a bookmark that’s been sitting inside someone’s book for fifteen years and they decided to re-read the book, and subsequently left it behind on a seat.
These scratch tickets were used before Metcard was introduced in the late-90s, and were notorious for fare evasion. They didn’t indicate a year (so some people went to the trouble of keeping them and using them on the same day each year). And because they were self-validated, some people kept them unscratched and only scratched them when they saw ticket inspectors.
Fewer than 5% of asylum seekers arrive by boat
I was following a link in a comment on The Australian’s amusing story about a Federal government media adviser accidently leaving an email trail on a media release (reminds me of the Windsor affair), which led me a document with some interesting factoids about the arrival of asylum seekers from 1976 to the present:
Boat arrivals only make up a small proportion of applicants. Estimates vary, but it is likely that between 96 and 99 percent of asylum applicants arrived by air originally.
– Parliamentary Library: Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?, p6.
In other words, for all the hype and rhetoric (from both sides of politics) about lots of boats arriving, they account for less than 5% of asylum seekers.
Past figures show that between 70 and 97 per cent of asylum seekers arriving by boat at different times have been found to be refugees and granted protection either in Australia or in another country.
…
In contrast, asylum claims from people who enter Australia by air on a valid visa and subsequently apply for asylum have not had such high success rates and the majority are not found to be refugees. This is demonstrated by the much lower onshore refugee recognition rates overall (air and boat arrivals combined) of around 20 or 30 per cent annually—the overall onshore refugee recognition rate for 2008 was 21.7 per cent.– Parliamentary Library: Asylum seekers and refugees: what are the facts?, p8-9.
So, in the best judgement of the authorities, most of the people arriving on the boats are genuine refugees. But the majority of those who have flown in and then claimed asylum (and they account for far, far more people) are not genuine refugees.
There’s a lot of other interesting information (with references) in the document, which is worth a read if you’re interested in this issue.
Related: There are around 3000 people are currently held in immigration detention centres (including Christmas Island), up about 300% in the last year.
In comparison, how many people have arrived using a temporary visa (eg on holiday) and have overstayed and are still in the country, not yet caught? Figures from 2005 said almost 50,000, though the figures don’t indicate how many were seeking asylum. (A quick search didn’t find newer figures.)
Update: Modified headline from “Less” to “Fewer” after a comment from the grammar police.
Flagstaff station turns 25
Next Thursday marks 25 years since the completion of the City Loop. Flagstaff Station was the last loop station to open — on the 27th of May 1985.
It’s the only station in Melbourne that is closed on weekends — being in the middle of the legal precinct, it’s a bit quiet around there on Saturdays and Sundays, though there are increasing numbers of residential buildings in the area.
It’s probably the least used of the CBD stations. That said, with a lot of office buildings nearby, it gets pretty busy during peak hour, but is quieter in the middle of the day and in the evening.
I hadn’t seen much of it until recently when I started using it regularly. Maybe you haven’t seen much of it either.
It’s named after the gardens above, of course. The gardens in turn are named after the flagstaff, erected on the hill in 1840 to signal ships in the bay. This entrance is in the corner of the gardens, and saves you crossing Latrobe Street if you’re headed for the north side of the street. This picture was taken a few months ago, after the Connex logo had been covered up, but before the Metro logo had taken its place.
In the morning peak, as each train arrives, swarms head up the escalators, through the fare gates on the concourse and then up more escalators to William Street. Chuggers, when present, are just outside the fare gates, and it’s also where you’ll find the not-very-busy Myki Mates, and Authorised Officers (inspectors). I quite like the main concourse; it feels very spacious, very airy for somewhere underground.
Most people head out onto William Street, coming out in the shadow of the huge adjacent Commonwealth Law Courts Building, and flooding William Street’s southbound footpath. In the evening peak the tide comes back the other way. The building includes the Family Court, and metal poles in the footpath around this area are to protect from attacks with cars.
Thankfully the Connex logo didn’t get onto everything. This signage didn’t need to be changed when Metro took over. It’s amazing how many people should probably use the lifts but don’t look for the signs, and can be found trying to get their bicycle or pram up the escalator.
Outside peak hour it can be dead quiet (not helped by less frequent trains, and agonisingly slow escalators). This picture was taken in the middle of a weekday.
By the time evening peak rolls around, the platforms fill up again.
Barely noticeable on the platforms are these little signs, warning future renovators to come of the precautions they should take.
I don’t mind the design of Flagstaff. It doesn’t have to cope with the influx of people that Melbourne Central does, so it gets away with not having the open platform design.
And for a station designed in the 70s and opened in 1985, the interior design hasn’t aged too badly.
- Melbourne City Council: Flagstaff Gardens
- History of the City Loop
- This video (at 3:20) has some scenes from outside Flagstaff from 1991
