Supermarket trolley deposit
Last week Safeway Woolworths replaced all their trolleys as part of the makeover.
And they all require a deposit — a $1 or $2 coin.
Excellent.
‘Cos while I don’t usually use a trolley, when I do, I’m sick of them having wonky wheels because people have pushed them for miles and dumped them in the street, where they get damaged. I’m sick of finding them in the park, and in my street, and even at the railway station, clogging up the entrance ramp. And I bet they’re expensive to collect and repair, contributing to higher prices.
Hopefully the deposit will reduce the instances of them going missing.
By the way there’s a notice at the entrance which says the supermarket will have its grand re-opening on the 29th. A bit odd if you ask me, given they’ve kept trading while the renovation’s happened.
Maybe they’ll get the local member of parliament to attend. Whoever that is by then.
Tags: Safeway, supermarkets, Woolworths
17 comments
Both sides to build Southland Station
I’m very pleased. After years of pressure, both major parties have pledged to build Southland station. The Liberals promised it last week, and yesterday the ALP came to the party. (As recently as last week, I ran into ALP’s Rob Hudson at Bentleigh station and he said he was pushing for it. At the time I’m not sure I believed anything would come of it.)
Southland was extended in the late-1990s across the highway to the railway line. It’s plainly ridiculous that such a major suburban destination should not have a railway station. While I’ve done it, Cheltenham station is too far for most people to walk (remember, they’ve had to walk to the station from home already, and the buses from the station to the centre depart from several different stops, making even their combined services unusable.
The local buses from nearby suburbs are hopeless. There are no Smartbuses; while the 600/922/923 runs reasonably frequently (due to the historical accident of it being a descendant of the Sandringham to Black Rock tram, and yes, it’s a bus route with three different numbers — ain’t it marvellous?) most of the others are hourly at weekends — the busiest shopping days. The result of course is chaos in the carparks.
So it’ll be good to see the station will finally be built.
A 2004 government study indicated the cost should be $10-14 million. The Libs pledge has come out at $13 million. Labor’s is at a whopping $45 million, which includes a full relocation of the bus interchange (some genius decided when it was built ten years ago that it shouldn’t be near a future station) — whereas the Libs’ only includes two bus bays, and presumably would have most buses either bypassing the station, or stopping briefly there on the way through. This would not necessarily be a problem, as all but one bus route connects with the Frankston line elsewhere.
And cruicially, it’s just the kind of intermediate trip generator that the Frankston line needs. These suburban destinations help a lot because there’s plenty of capacity on trains in and out of Southland at most times of day, meaning a lot more people can use PT for their trips without adding to pressure on overcrowded services.
Me? I’ll be pleased to be able to head down there without hunting for a car park or walking to and waiting ages for the bus.
- The PTUA put out its election scorecard on Wednesday. It’s been updated to take into account the latest pledges, but of the big three, the Greens still lead with an A, the Coalition on a B (largely due to these two parties’ pledges to introduce an independent public transport authority to better plan, manage and coordinate the network) and Labor on a C.
- Meanwhile the Democrats have leapt head-first into the chasm of irrelevancy by pledging to build maglev trains. Ian tells me there’s a maglev carriage for sale in Birmingham, from the former airport terminal connector line — maybe they can buy that one to start them off.
Sure, I can park here. Why not?
Well, this thing I’m driving is about as big as a bus, so I thought I could park in the bus stop. Obviously it would have been too hard to move forward a couple of metres into the perfectly legal parking spot just ahead.
I guess I could have knocked on the window and asked if she was the 703. But I wanted to catch a real one to see if they’d fixed the zone overlap Myki bug yet.
They haven’t — see today’s Age (not online — article now online). It’s the same problem I first found on day one of Myki on buses back in July, and was highlighted again in a comment from Alasdair — and for him this route is on his daily commute. Can you imagine the hassle of ringing up every day to get re-imbursed the $4.04 (two trips) incorrectly charged?
Tags: Morons on the road, Myki, parking
8 comments
The power of music
(My blogging is likely to be a little sporadic for the next week or two. I’m sure you can work out why.)
Music can often be very powerful at capturing an emotion, a feeling, a memory.
After that post a couple of months ago about songs on a theme, here’s another theme that’s become relevant to me since three months ago today.
The Living Years, by Mike and the Mechanics. I sometimes hear this one in shops and so on. It’s peppy enough that for most of the song you can ignore the story of it, but if you listen closely, they’re quite moving.
Tank Park Salute, by Billy Bragg. I found this one emotional enough when I first heard it, years ago. I find the lyrics incredibly powerful. To be honest I haven’t wanted to listen to it since my dad passed on.
No doubt there are other songs on this theme out there, though I can’t think of any others I know well.
A different theme, but due to family circumstances both when I was growing up, and in my adult life, Weddings Parties Anything’s Father’s Day is also one that resonates very powerfully with me.
The things kids say
I know there’s nothing more dull than than reading someone’s blog post on amusing things their kids say. So this one’s about my nephew and niece. And it’s about stuff they used to say, and have now grown out of, but which I’ve found so amusing that sometimes I jokingly insert them into my speech in conversations with the extended family.
“Buggan” — at one early stage this was the only discernible word my nephew Leo would utter. It seemed to be an all-purpose answer to everything.
“Dingers!” — Leo has been fascinated by trains for some time (getting into the family business), and at one stage was particularly taken by railway boom gates. He reasoned that they go “ding”, therefore the trains which cause them to go “ding” must be “Dingers”.
“Go go go!” — another Leoism, one he would utter from the back seat of the car when urging his parents to take off when he saw traffic traffic lights turn green.
Finally, in an incident a few months ago, my niece Isolda was running around in undies and a top, and her mum said she looked like Lady Gaga. She must have been in one of those contradictory moods, as she immediately came back with “I’m not Lady Gaga — you’re Lady Gaga!” It’s unclear if Isolda actually understood the reference, and knows who Lady Gaga is.
I’m reminded of this every time I hear politicians arguing on the radio or television. At one stage during the wash-up after the Federal election, I was listening to Hockey and Swan… I’m paraphrasing but it was basically: “You’re fiscally incompetent!” “I’m not fiscally incompetent — you’re fiscally incompetent!”
Tags: family, Isolda, Leo
8 comments
Supermarket karma
It was my turn in the express checkout. I had to manoeuvre past a trolley someone had left in front of the checkout.
Trolleys shouldn’t go through there anyway, but this one had been abandoned, with a single bottle of wine in it (wrapped, so I assume paid for).
Why you need a trolley to carry a single bottle of wine, I don’t know. Why you would abandon them in the express lanes, I don’t know.
As my stuff was being scanned, I went and popped my basket onto the pile, and then went to move the trolley a metre or so, to a spot that was slightly less in the way of everyone.
A lady said “that’s mine. And I’m not finished.”
“Oh.”
She looked around for whoever had been serving her before she decided to abandon her transaction midway through and go and get something else. (Another thing I hate.)
Turned out it was a Safeway Woolworths Guy who had decided not to just stand there like a lump while she took her sweet time, but to help some Other Customer. Good on him.
And it turned out that the Other Customer had a query about the product, which took the Woolworths Guy off to check something on the shelf.
As I paid for my groceries, the Other Customer and the Woolworths Guy had returned and were still sorting out the product query, while Ms Unnecessary Trolley Abandon Lady looked on, fuming, having to wait her turn for the Woolworths Guy to finish.
heh. Excellent. That, my friends, is supermarket karma.
(By the way, the name might have changed, but they still have a scarcity of baskets at the other entrance.)
Tags:
3 comments
Sights from the Footscray station pedestrian bridge
The Footscray station pedestrian bridge opened earlier this year. As noted in this Age article, part of it will have to be demolished to cater for the Regional Fast Rail project (even though the RFR project was funded before the bridge was built… hello, forward planning).
Anyway, there are some great views from the top of the bridge. Here are some of them.
View to the Westgate bridge…
View to the docks
View to the city
View to the Footscray market (be thankful the smell can’t be reproduced online)
View to the doughnut van and the shops.
The crane is a sign of things to come — Footscray is one of six suburban Central Activities Districts, and is likely to be heavily developed in coming years. The first highrise buildings are going up already.
And the empty land in the foreground will make way for the new platforms and station plaza — though I’ve been assured the doughnut vendor will be looked after.
I’m terribly sorry: the one I took of the view to Franco Cozzo didn’t come out. Will go back and do it again soon.
Confusion galore
Find out more — and send an email to your local MP and state election candidates outlining your concerns about public transport — at www.PTthatworks.org.au
Update Wednesday: Labor has now released its transport policy.
