The fuss over Public Transport Minister Lynne Kosky wanting to deflect complaints elsewhere should be a reminder of the big problems on the public transport network — which some would argue those in power are trying to avoid hearing about.

As it happens my commute home that night was a dream. From work to the front door in 39 minutes, aided by trains that were on time to the minute, they were inadvertently scheduled in such a way that allowed me to avoid going around the loop, I scheduled my trip right on time, and my fast walking pace. For me, that has to be some kind of rush hour speed record.

Why isn’t it always like this?

Because the trains often don’t run on time — to the extent that they’ve failed to meet their targets for the last three consecutive months.

Because almost all PT services run too infrequently. It’s not like some cities where you can enter a station platform without checking a timetable, and expect to be on a train and on your way within a few minutes, at any time of day.

Because so many places (even in a big, reasonably densely-populated city like Melbourne) simply don’t have PT services that are anywhere close to time-competitive with driving. (Don’t for one minute think I didn’t specifically plan to live walking distance from a railway station.)

Because many suburbs are designed to be unfriendly to pedestrians, having roads which make pedestrians wait inordinate amounts of time to cross.

Fix some of these things, and the dominance of the motor car, and all the nasties that come with it (pollution, emissions, obesity, road toll, dependence on foreign oil) will start to wane.

So, did we all get the fake SMS from Connex last night? I certainly did. Looks like lots did.

ALLAHU AKBR FROM CONNEX! our inspectorS Love Killing people - If you see one coming, run. Want to bomb a train? they will gladly help! See you in hell!

Shame they can’t spell.

The followup, later last night:

A hoax message was sent tonight to some users. Connex apologises and is investigating with the police.

Doesn’t instil you with confidence about their security. We’ve had people vandalise their trains before, now they’re vandalising their computer systems.

By the way, a bloke in Big W last night asked “Don’t you work for Connex?” No mate, I don’t. But with Channel 7 running an advert which includes the shot below (at Flinders Street Station) for the past week, I can almost understand the confusion.

Hey, at least they finally used one of those damn walking shots!

PS. 2pm Ooh, funny. My new couch arrived this morning. Shortly after that I was asked to re-create receiving of the SMS, for a TV crew. As a result, you may see my new couch on tonight’s ABC TV news.

Ever noticed how crowded the trains are on the weekend on the busy lines since the footy finished? I don’t mean on race days, I mean on “normal” weekends. People are not just having to stand, but sometimes it’s a struggle to fit aboard, because they’re running short 3-carriage trains.

It’s not a new thing; I’ve been complaining about it for years, as have others.

And it’s been getting worse, as petrol prices have got more people travelling by train (up 11% in the past year). In one recent extreme case, short trains were left to cope with a crowd of 33,000 people attending a weekend soccer game.

Of course it’s almost understandable that peak hour trains are packed, when (just about) every train is six carriages, and all of the serviceable fleet is in action. But on weekends, when most of the fleet is sitting doing nothing, it’s inexcusable. The government and Connex both claim to want to get new customers onto the train… but anybody trying it out and experiencing these kinds of conditions will go back to their car and never come back.

Connex is just trying to cut costs (mostly maintenance) — they’ve admitted so themselves. Apparently the lure of 40% of any additional revenue earned isn’t enough for them. If the privatised system worked, the government would take one look at the problem and order them to put on more carriages. But no.

The problem has been largely unnoticed, out of the public eye. The weekend before we went to Sydney, on Sunday morning, I got some video footage organised. A few days later I gave the footage to a contact at Channel 7. That night:

• Press release: Connex driving away customers — Call for weekend train upgrades

Once again, the pictures make the story. After years of being fobbed off, Connex now say they are reviewing the situation. I’ve told them I’ll organise a followup story if they don’t fix it. Anybody want to put money on what happens next?

(Ran into the reporter last weekend. He gave me some useful filming tips for next time…)

Watch the news tonight.

Update lunchtime:

Press release: PTUA calls on politicians not to duck public transport issues.

Pic from the field:

Update Wednesday morning:

Despite petrol at record prices and traffic congestion, most people still don’t use public transport. Its share of the market sits stagnant at about 8% or so.

Why? Because most people will only choose PT over driving when it’s convenient: when it goes where you want to go, and when it’s frequent. How frequent is Melbourne’s PT? Here are the figures for the number of routes running every 15 minutes or better:

Say, for example, you want to go out at the weekend, and you don’t want to have to wait around too long, and you don’t want to check a timetable and time your trip to match the services. Well you’d better hope your trip is along one of the few routes that are running frequently:

All those spaces beyond the marked spots on the map are filled with suburbs: houses, shops, people. But no PT frequent enough to be competitive with driving.

This is why most people drive everywhere. It’s no wonder the roads are so congested… even on weekends.

See all the figures and maps.

Took the day off today, but was too busy to blog. Back tomorrow hopefully.

PS. Thursday morning: Here’s why.

Up for a little light reading on why public transport is important, and what needs to be done to make it better? The government is coming out with its Transport & Liveability Statement next week, but in the mean time, the PTUA’s book from 2002 “It’s Time To Move” is now available for download as a PDF.

After all the pressure on the government recently, it’ll be interesting to see how far the TLS goes to fix the problems, or at least resolve the roads vs PT spending imbalance.

PS. A random Melbourne PT fact that occasionally comes up in conversation, to which people respond with surprise, so just thought I’d mention it here: on the top of the fare gates at city railway stations are yellow lights. These flash when concession ticketholders go through, so any inspectors present know which people to ask for concession cards.