Categories
transport

Bentleigh station isn’t finished

Now that we’ve finished talking about names of yet-to-be-built stations, let’s talk about some recently built ones. Last Saturday a steam train ran to celebrate a year (and a bit) since the new Bentleigh/McKinnon/Ormond stations re-opened, following level crossing removals. K153 leads a Steamrail special into McKinnon pic.twitter.com/6XISB3b2t1 — Metro Man (@The_Rail_Life) November 25, 2017  ... [More]

Categories
transport

The metro tunnel stations will be called…

So the Metro tunnel station names will be, from south to north… Anzac (working name Domain) — located more-or-less underneath the Shrine of Remembrance, of course. (The Shrine Trustees didn’t want the word Shrine used, by the way. I wonder how they feel about Anzac. Given the usual tight control over the name, I assume  ... [More]

Categories
transport

8 minutes to Southland

After many years of waiting, Southland station finally opened this morning, with an official ribbon cutting, attended by Minister for Public Transport Jacinta Allan, MP for Bentleigh Nick Staikos, MP for Mordialloc Tim Richardson, and PTV head Jeroen Weimar. Southland station is now officially opened, with trains stopping there from early this morning. pic.twitter.com/f6gUU0Oz4I —  ... [More]

Categories
Photos from ten years ago

Old photos from November 2007

Bentleigh area peeps: the steam train is back tomorrow (Saturday 25th November)! Steam trains this Saturday: Caulfield, Ormond, Mckinnon, Bentleigh, Moorabbin. ? pic.twitter.com/fHTqBE4RrE — Daniel Bowen (@danielbowen) November 22, 2017 Meanwhile, here’s another of my sets of ten year old photos, this time from November 2007. The month started with a quick trip to Adelaide.  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Is it time to buy a Yearly Myki fare?

Generally every January, public transport fares in Victoria go up. This year it’s expected to be a 4.3% rise — this is CPI of 1.8% 2.8% (for the year to September), plus a 2.5% 1.5% rise that was first announced by the Coalition in December 2013, to be implemented in January 2015-2018, and dutifully followed  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Would you want a spaghetti junction in your neighbourhood?

In a plan that takes the popular level crossing removal program but flips it on its head, the State Coalition have announced they will grade-separate 55 road intersections around Melbourne if elected in 2018. (Reports: ABC / Age / Herald Sun) Here’s an animation created by the Coalition: And here’s the list of intersections announced  ... [More]

Categories
driving transport

Cyclists on the footpath

I described this on Twitter the other day, but I’ll expand on it here. I was heading out in the car on Saturday afternoon. Got in, beeped, looked behind me, slowly backed-out of my driveway. BANG! A cyclist riding along the footpath with his dog (roughly at running pace) collided with my car. I stopped,  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism

ATMs are free – but not all of them

Believe it or not, sometimes I blog about things other than transport. If you want to look purely at transport posts, try this link. Commonwealth Bank (CBA) announced on 24th September that all their ATMs were free for use by customers of any Australian bank. The same day, the rest of the Big 4 scrambled,  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Southland station, about to open – at last!

Southland station is almost here — it’s scheduled to open on November 26th. At last! The centre has been getting ready Importantly, a more direct pedestrian path, including zebra crossings, has been provided from the centre entrance to the railway station. Bravo! Wayfinding signage inside the centre already points the way to the station. Paid  ... [More]

Categories
Toxic Custard newsletter transport

“Step-free” doesn’t mean DDA-compliant

All of Melbourne’s suburban railway stations have step-free access to the platforms. Except one: Heyington. To get to either platform involves steps. Heyington is set into the side of a hill. From the street you go down some steps to the citybound (“up”) platform. Or if you want the outbound (“down”) platform, that’s down some  ... [More]

Categories
Photos from ten years ago Toxic Custard newsletter

Old photos from October 2007

ZOMG, for the first time since I started this series, I forgot to post photos for October 2007 in October. And nobody noticed. Not surprising; I suspect I’m the most amused by these. Here they are. First, here’s the classic pic of Flinders Street Station. Basically the same nowadays, but covered in scaffolding for the  ... [More]

Categories
Toxic Custard newsletter walking

The use and misuse of footpaths

I ran a Twitter thread over the last fortnight, highlighting some of the ways that footpath space is misused, or mis-allocated. This blog expands on those posts. In some of these cases, capacity constraints are causing problems for large numbers of pedestrians. Able-bodied people are often able to avoid those hazards, though it does slow  ... [More]