Baillieu and the Clearways
Seems the more cynical (especially on the left) are panicking about the new Coalition government in Victoria, including with regard to public transport — trams in particular.
Remember Kennett!
Well no, hold on. Baillieu is not Kennett, this is not 1992, and the economy is not stuffed. There is no mandate nor need to drastically cut government debt, nor cut government spending.
And unlike any time in the last few decades, public transport patronage is increasing, there is public demand for investment, and there is not even the scope nor opportunity for Kennett-style work reforms (such as the mass removal of staff). On the contrary, the Coalition has come in pledging 940 security officers for stations, as well as 40 more trains, and feasibility studies for four new rail lines (Doncaster, Rowville, Tullamarine and Avalon).
Removal of Clearways is anti-tram!
First of all, no Clearways are being removed. Rather, the hours they apply is being rolled back to how they were a couple of years ago. Under Brumby these crept into off-peak business hours, up to 10am in the mornings, and from 3:30pm in the afternoons.
Secondly, there are questionmarks over whether the benefits of Clearways is compelling against the pain suffered by shopping strips — not just removal of parking, but general poor amenity — window shopping and al fresco dining are not very pleasant with cars zooming by at 60 km/h. Parked cars provide a buffer.
In strip shopping centres with no clearways, such as Centre Road (where widened footpaths physically prevent it) there is activity on the street as early as 8am, with cafe patrons sipping coffees and eating breakfast.
The obvious question must be: are streets just for traffic, or for everybody?
In any case, opinions differ on how much travel time is saved with Clearways. Some tram drivers say there’s a noticeable difference. But the only hard figures that have come out are that on High Street there is saving 5% time for trams, and 9% for cars. So it benefits motorists more than tram passengers. And for trams, that adds up to just 36 seconds along the affected section. (It’s not even clear if this applies to the peak of the peak, or the 9am-10am and 3:30pm-4:30pm periods now rolled-back, when traffic is much lighter. It’s also not clear if it’s in the AM peak direction, which includes a tram-only lane, or in the PM peak direction as well, which has no tram lane.)
On Sydney Road, where the Clearway is not accompanied by a tram-only lane, a study indicated the time difference for trams was next to nothing: just 7 seconds — with adjoining section along Royal Parade actually being slower, despite it having a dedicated tram lane.
This reflects the fact that most of the delays are at traffic lights; in fact Yarra Trams figures indicate delays at traffic lights account for 17% of travel time across the tram network, much higher than in many other tram cities — including those similar to Melbourne, with older networks running in mixed traffic.
Traffic light priority, if done well, could be highly beneficial to tram users, but barely noticeable to most other people.
Other solutions (particularly relevant for the south end of Sydney Road) would include traffic metering, to reduce the number of cars able to enter the street ahead of the trams (which could easily be carrying 150 cars-worth of passengers), and subtly encourage (but not force) motorists onto other (non-tram) roads.
Don’t panic
The Coalition said little about trams (or buses) during the election campaign. Neither did Labor. Let’s face it, trains get most of the publicity. That doesn’t mean it’s time to panic just yet.
Of course, they’ll probably need some nudging, particularly with regards to issues like traffic light priority for trams.
Happy Gravy Day
(There are several versions of this song on Youtube. I like the versions with his full band, but this one — which appears to be with Uncle Bill — is excellent.)
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The A to Z of online stores
Pondering the fact that I’d browsed both dstore.com.au and estore.com.au, I was curious as to what others exist…
astore.com.au — watches and jewellery
bstore.com.au — Birkenstock shoes
cstore.com.au — forwards to Codagenic, selling an ecommerce platform
dstore.com.au — all sorts of stuff; been around for years
estore.com.au — geeky stuff; a division of City Software
fstore.com.au — toys and gifts
gstore.com.au — green products
hstore.com.au — hobbies
istore.com.au — registered, but not in use
jstore.com.au — not in use
kstore.com.au — registered, but not in use; apparently under construction
lstore.com.au — not in use
mstore.com.au — registered, but not in use
nstore.com.au — registered, but not in use
ostore.com.au — not in use
pstore.com.au — registered, but not in use
qstore.com.au — not in use
rstore.com.au — dent removal from cars
sstore.com.au — not in use
tstore.com.au — not in use
ustore.com.au — not in use
vstore.com.au — registered, but not in use
wstore.com.au — web hosting
xstore.com.au — adult products
ystore.com.au — forwards to melbourneit.com.au domain name sales; not clear if it’s owned by someone else but unused
zstore.com.au — party entertainment
Tags: domain names, Internet
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Lovely summer weather
Isaac and Jeremy have gone to Hawaii for Christmas with their mum and her family.
The Hawaii weather forecast appears to say that today it’s 28 degrees (C) and mostly sunny.
Given the weather today in Melbourne, I’m beginning to get quite envious.
Oh, is that thunder I hear now? Even better!
I know we’ve had a drought, but at what point can we stop saying “oh well, we need the rain” and start actively moaning about it again?
Tags: Melbourne, weather
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Christmas Island
What can you say about the tragedy off Christmas Island?
A Custom Department spokeswoman this morning confirmed the death toll had risen to 30 after a fragile Indonesian fishing boat packed with up to 100 asylum seekers was smashed against the island’s jagged limestone coast.
Obviously there’s a whole sequence of events that has led to this, but the apparent desperation of the people on-board to escape from Iran and Iraq to a better life was underscored by near-consecutive items on the news ticker on ABC News Breakfast yesterday morning.
We’re pretty lucky in Australia. While some who live here do yearn to live elsewhere, few have to resort to these types of measures to try and get there.
PS. Kudos to the people of Christmas Island who did what they could to help.
The secret’s out
The secret door at the post office that I highlighted back in June now has an explanatory note:
So it’s lost some of its mystique, though of course it’s better to actually explain to people what it is and how they can use it.
Tags: Australia Post, post office
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Long live the queen
The electorate office of new member for Bentleigh, Elizabeth Miller, has been vandalised.
The stencil, which reads “Long live the queen” with an image of Miller, appears to indicate some preparation was involved.
Given the “The king is dead, long live the queen”, I can’t work out if this is pro-Miller, or pro-ex-member Hudson, or both, or neither.
Update: It turns out Miller has taken over Hudson’s old electorate office, making the vandalised shopfront just a (temporary, one would assume) campaign office.
The wisdom of the barber
Much of the gossip and all the knowledge of a neighbourhood flows through the local shopkeepers, none more so than the hairdressers and barbers, where customers are most likely to have an extended conversation.
The two nuggets of information from my haircut last week?
I already knew this: breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If the body doesn’t get food within a couple of hours of waking up, it reasons that no more food may be forthcoming, therefore everything should be stored as fat for later.
The other one: according to another customer who is involved with high finance, the sharemarket’s heading for another fall, and this month would be a good time to move your superannuation out of most shares, into blue chip or other investments. And it must be true, because this guy saw the GFC coming.
Hmm. I’m not totally convinced, but on the other hand, if I don’t adjust my super, and it drops, I’ll be kicking myself.
Tags: diet, finance
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