Categories
transport

Train punctuality – WWJD?

Last week the government announced timetable changes, including adjustments to the Cranbourne/Pakenham line. (I’ll just call it the Dandenong line for short. Almost everybody else does.) Of the roughly 265 services per weekday, 93 will be adjusted. A few will be quicker by a minute or two, but most of the 93 will be slower  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Protip: the Myki gate doesn’t have to close behind the previous person before you can touch your card

Update – see below At busy times, queues can form at station fare gates, especially when large numbers of people arrive from multiple trains at once. Investment in more gates and faster (Vix) readers has helped – 950 new readers are being installed in 141 stations. But it’s noticeable than some people wait for the  ... [More]

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Photos from ten years ago

Old photos from October 2009

Here’s another in my series of old photos out of the vault from ten years ago. We went to Bendigo for a couple of days, so here are a couple of snaps from that trip. The only time I saw Powderfinger live was this “surprise” gig in Federation Square. (A surprise except a lot of  ... [More]

Categories
transport

The ups and downs of escalators

It’s not your imagination. Some City Loop escalators are running slower in peak hour. Normally: Fast in peak, slow off-peak Normal practice (for decades now) is to run the Loop station escalators at a reasonable clip during peak hour, and set to slow down outside peak. This is pretty annoying for many of those catching  ... [More]

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Net Toxic Custard newsletter

The end of Toxic Custard

Before blogging and the web, there was email and Usenet and FTP sites. Just over 29 years ago I started writing online, sending out literal undergraduate humour to mates at Monash University and beyond mostly via email, under the truly ridiculous name “Toxic Custard“. It got into the student newspaper, then in 1996 it went  ... [More]

Categories
transport

How much would trains every ten minutes cost?

One of the gaping holes in Melbourne’s public transport system is the lack of an all-day every day frequent service on the backbone: the Metro suburban train network. Melbourne is one of the few cities in the world, outside North America, which doesn’t have frequent all day trains. Other Australian cities are moving towards this.  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Big changes proposed for the City Loop

A Metro (MTM) proposal has emerged for big changes to the operation of the City Loop for trains running through the Caulfield and Burnley tunnels. The page below is from a document discussing CBD station capacity implications from the introduction of the High Capacity Metro Trains. I’m told the document is genuine. It reveals that  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism Toxic Custard newsletter Working life

Does your super match your values?

The wave of climate protests (the Climate Strike a few weeks ago, and to a lesser extent the Extinction Rebellion last week) are a good reminder that although our current political masters (especially at the Federal level in Australia) are keen to do nothing, pretty soon a large mass of people who want action will  ... [More]

Categories
Photos from ten years ago transport

Myki ten years on, and photos from the test centre

This is part two of my ten year old photos from September 2009. At the time, Myki had been launched in regional cities, and was about to start in Melbourne. Ahead of the wider rollout, I got to look around the Myki test centre, which was fascinating. Around the place were lots of test cards  ... [More]

Categories
Photos from ten years ago

Old photos from September 2009

Oops, I managed to miss posting ten year old photos in September. Better late than never, here they are – at least here is part one – I’ve got a special part two coming up soon. Centre Place, always lovely. I notice the sign about when it’s closed to vehicles – it’d be a brave  ... [More]

Categories
driving transport

Hey Google, tell me where to go

My car has a spot in the central console area thingy that looks like it has been designed to store your mobile phone so you can kind of see the screen while driving, for navigational purposes. At least, the manual doesn’t seem to document its purpose, and I can’t figure out what else it could  ... [More]

Categories
transport

Map: How the 2015 zone changes affected train patronage

It’s well known that the Free Tram Zone worsened CBD tram crowding, but the package of fare reforms implemented in 2015 (planned by the Napthine government, matched by Labor) also capped zone 1+2 fares at zone 1 prices. This removed a long-time bugbear in the fare system: the huge jump from going over the zone  ... [More]