In what might become a tradition (by my count this makes the fourth time in the last few months) Premier Brumby and Public Transport Minister Kosky took a train ride yesterday to make an announcement, this time at Jolimont, then caught a train to Parliament. (You could tell Brumby doesn’t catch the train much; the TV footage showed him standing on the right hand side of the escalator.)

And this time round, it’s some genuinely good news. eight more trains on order, making a total of eighteen to arrive from 2009. That’s an 11% boost to fleet size, or space for an extra 36,000 people (assuming two trips per train per peak), which will start to make a significant impact on the current overcrowding.

Of course, they’re going to need more each year after that if patronage keeps increasing, which it will (growing city + rising petrol prices = more people on trains).

And there’s a bunch of other things they could and should be doing in the meantime. For instance, spreading the peak over more hours by running more frequent trains (including expresses) throughout the day, and stop mucking about with short overcrowded trains in the evening and weekends. And doing a full review and revision of the timetable to make sure when the new trains arrive that they can be used effectively.

But at last it seems like they’re starting to realise things need fixing, and making it a priority to do so.

Some pics from the last few days…

These people really really really really really like Sunkist. They bought probably about 50 x 1.25 litre bottles. (Why not buy bigger bottles?) They also bought over 100 Milo bars. Someone, somewhere is having a Sunkist and Milo Bar party. The checkout staff seemed quite bemused by it all.

What’s worse than a mobile billboard?
A mobile billboard being pulled along by a hulking great tank.
What’s worse than a mobile billboard being pulled along by a hulking great tank?
A mobile billboard being pulled along by a hulking great tank, encouraging other people to buy hulking great tanks.

A tram approaching needs a new mirror. These guys appeared to be waiting for it with the replacement mirror, to do a running repair. Good thinking.

Chatting to some of my closest friends yesterday about something or other. For what it’s worth, this is a complex issue, which is not very well handled by short soundbites on TV/radio. Feature articles deal with it better:

• Age 22/8/2007: The Squeeze Test
• Age 4/8/2007: On the wrong track

Sorry, too busy today to say much.

• Age: Public transport call to Canberra. Full report: Moving Australians Sustainably.
• Age: New rail tunnel proposal gains momentum
• Herald-Sun: Rail system daily ordeal for 300,000

The trains have problems, but at least most people can figure out where they go. (Uhh, well, apart from the whole City Loop reversal thing.)

But try the buses. I reckon the 627 bus has Melbourne’s most confusing route.

It goes from Elsternwick to East Brighton, but via Chadstone. (And if you don’t know your Melbourne geography, it’s a detour of about 10km.)

On the way, it passes through Carnegie twice, and that includes along the same bit of Koornang Road.

The buses have a Chadstone sign for the first part of the route, before changing to their end destination. Unfortunately that means that in that bit of Koornang Road, you get buses with the same number and the same destination sign (”Chadstone 627″), that take different routes.

And just in case you thought you’d figured it out, although the route theoretically goes to East Brighton, in fact all but half-a-dozen services each day terminate short of there, 2 minutes back down the road in McKinnon.

I wonder what idiot designed this? Were they deliberately trying to put people off using the buses?

As it happens there are reviews of bus routes happening at the moment. It’ll be interesting to see if this little mess gets fixed up.

Been busy on a comparison of public transport fares between Australian mainland cities, which found Melbourne’s the most expensive for most trips: Age story… on the front page no less. Full data/graphs.

The government claims it’s an unfair comparison. But they would say that, wouldn’t they.

Yes, I had a heads-up about the story on the front page of yesterday’s Age.

Yes, I went to bed early(ish) and woke up early, ready as I could be for the onslaught.

No, it was not an audio problem on 3AW — I was half asleep at 6:25am when I spoke to them. “Government” is a particularly tricky word at that time of the morning.

Yes, I’d woken up by the time I spoke to the others just after 7.

No, I am not a morning person.

As for the story itself, it’s a little lesson in what the prominence of a headline can do. Apparently until Sunday night it hadn’t been planned to be a big thing, but someone decided it should have the front page. Sometimes it’s like real estate: location, location, location. It got the Minister out to talk to the pack about it, got the TV and radio and online media all chasing it, and kept going all day.

And it’s all part of keeping the pressure on the government to actually fix the problems. (Hey, we can hope, can’t we?)

I try to shoehorn various activities into my day, some of which involves my public transport advocacy work. While I end up doing some of the media, the load is shared, and others do a lot of policy work which makes it pretty easy — once the policy’s been nutted out, as long as you know what it is, you generally know what to say.

As I’ve commented before, the whole thing has led me to experience and learn new things. Even after three years doing it, sometimes it brings some new situations.

On Tuesday (State Budget day) I went up to the Parliamentary Press Gallery to talk to some of the radio people. Wasn’t really sure who I’d find. I rang the doorbell and a lady poked her head around the door. “Oh, hi Daniel!” I didn’t recognise her (I can be terrible at recognising people), but it certainly made it easier that she recognised me. Five minutes later I was doing a press conference with three journos in a kitchen. Never done that before.

And yesterday Channel 9 did a story about the Oakleigh derailment, and also a story on the Coroner’s Report into a level crossing accident. I ended up commenting on both, and (almost to my surprise) they used grabs in both stories, which ran consecutively, meaning I appeared twice within a couple of minutes. Never had that happen before either.

By the way, the Budget included $52 million for a redevelopment of Footscray Railway Station and the station precinct, as part of the Transit Cities project. That’ll be good, but I hope it doesn’t mean the demise of Olympic Doughnuts. Maybe they’ll build a special spot for the caravan, like Melbourne Central’s Shot Tower?

If you’re worried about climate change, and the glacial (!) rate government is addressing it… and you’re in Melbourne, try this: on Sunday morning the Bayside Climate Change Group are getting together people for a human sign on Sandringham beach at 10am, to say “HALT CLIMATE CHANGE NOW!”

(I’m assuming the team co-ordinating don’t all have dyslexia, or we might end up with “A MECHANICAL WELT THONG!” or “A GALACTIC MENTHOL WHEN?” something.)

It’s just near the station and there’ll be extra trains to help people get down there without driving. Various media etc will be in attendance, naturally, to highlight the crowd’s efforts. After the sign there’ll be an expo with displays and so on to find out more.

More info: Bayside Climate Change Group / PTUA / Metlink