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Photos from ten years ago Toxic Custard newsletter transport

Old photos from April 2009

Another in my series of old ten year old photos. This turned out to be a bit of a bumper crop – a few months before I’d got the Nokia N95 phone, my first with a decent camera, so perhaps no surprise the number of photos was increasing. Melbourne’s first wind-powered tram had launched in  ... [More]

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transport

Some Night Buses barely used

The Age ran this story based on data FOI’d by The Greens:Running on empty: Secret data reveals Melbourne’s ‘ghost buses’ I got to take a look at the data, focusing on Night Bus routes. The current Night Network commenced in January 2016, following a 2014 election pledge by Labor to introduce all-night trains (on all  ... [More]

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transport

Bike parking: the next generation

This caught my eye: a commuter at Aircraft station: …uses the station five days a week and said she had given up trying to get a park at the station. “Because of the traffic congestion on Point Cook Road and because of the lack of car parking facilities at the station, I choose to walk  ... [More]

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transport

The importance of contingency plans

I could moan on about Friday night’s experience with the replacement buses (a combination of poor night-time service provision and inaccurate passenger information) but you can read about that on Twitter, so instead let’s look at Monday night’s south eastern train problems. It often takes multiple factors to result in a real mess. So it  ... [More]

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transport

PPTN – a good idea – in principle

The PPTN is the Principal Public Transport Network. The state government describes it as follows: The Principal Public Transport Network (PPTN) reflects the routes where high-quality public transport services are or will be provided. It supports integrated transport and land use planning by encouraging more diverse and dense development near high-quality public transport to help  ... [More]

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transport

Parking in the bus zone

I’ve mentioned this in passing before, but what the heck. This is a bus stop on Jasper Road in Bentleigh, opposite Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College. Normally it’s used by local bus route 701. It’s also used when there are planned rail replacement buses running, as the designated stop for Patterson station. These  ... [More]

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transport

Train Pain

If you were following me on Twitter on Monday morning, you’d know that I made a decision I came to regret: I travelled to work on the train to Caulfield and the express rail replacement bus into the City. In short: the buses were hopelessly swamped by people. It was a long wait (43 minutes)  ... [More]

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driving Toxic Custard newsletter transport

The monetary cost of driving

One of the issues that contributes to excessive car use is that it’s not straightforward to calculate the cost of driving. Once you have the car, the cost of each additional trip you take in it is obscured. Apart from tolls and fuel costs, many might see an already-paid-for car sitting in the driveway as  ... [More]

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transport

The merger

The Victorian Department of Transport is expanding, absorbing Vicroads and PTV to one big agency. We’ll have to see, but potentially this could be good. Better integration of different transport planning roles could benefit street-based public transport in particular. Recent changes, moving some PTV roles into DOT (and/or the apparently shortlived Transport For Victoria) were  ... [More]

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transport

Mobile Myki – not available for uni students

UPDATE: SEE BELOW Mobile Myki was made permanent last month. Even though for now it’s only available on Android phones, it’s great that it’s increased the options for public transport ticketing. So if you’re a senior (60+) and you want to use Mobile Myki? No problem – grab your Android phone with NFC, install Google  ... [More]