From today there were changes to the City Loop. Clifton Hill trains are now running clockwise all day on weekdays (though oddly anti-clockwise on weekends, just to keep people guessing) and Werribee trains are running direct via Southern Cross and Flinders Street in peak hours, bypassing the loop. Is there angst about this? You bet. ... [More]
Category: PTUA
I don’t know what’s wrong with The Age web site, but frequently the online version of the Letters page leaves big slabs of text out of people’s letters. They did it with mine this morning, which is a response to a letter in yesterday’s Age. Given the heading they gave it, the missing first paragraph ... [More]
The pictures in the Heckler section on the back page of The Sunday Age this morning may look familiar… I originally posted them here.
The new Customer Information Centre at Flinders Street Station is a funny looking structure. The native grasses growing out of the sides… well, I don’t know who thought of it, but it’s certainly distinctive. Staff will answer customer queries there, and additional staff will be on the platforms from November. Extra staff on Melbourne’s busiest ... [More]
I couldn’t fault the trains on Tuesday going to the Show. But despite all the talk of fighting fare evasion, things at the Showgrounds station on Tuesday were incredibly sloppy. While the Show tickets were individually scanned on entry, we didn’t have our train tickets checked when arriving or departing. And when we left, we ... [More]
Not for the first time, a blog post of mine has been adapted into a newspaper story. Today’s Sunday Age reports on “ghost trams”: On our tramway’s secret service. Interestingly, Yarra Trams uses the term “ghost tram” for something else already — a tram that’s out of radio contact. Last year The Age did a ... [More]
Sigh. In retrospect I probably should have shut my big mouth rather than comment on the upgrade to Hamer Hall. UNIONS and community groups have slammed a State Government plan to spend $129 million on an Arts Centre facelift. “Patrons of Hamer Hall are lucky they’re not seeing performances in the same conditions that public ... [More]
Too busy to blog this morning. (Reasons: 1 2 3 4 5) Found this article on a Chinese language web site. I can’t read it, so I fed it into the Google translator facility. I’m sure in the original Chinese, it’s completely grammatically correct — it’s the automated translation back to English that’s so entertaining. ... [More]
Most unexpected question from the media pack at 1 Treasury Place this morning: Should Premiers Lane have a possessive apostrophe? (That Brendan is a joker.) I gave a mock answer for that one, which wound up proceedings, and a quick discussion followed on the merits or otherwise of punctuation in street signs. As it turns ... [More]
A Herald Sun article last week quoted figures showing that ditching cars and switching to PT could save you between $4,000 and $10,000 per year. (Seriously, it’s not just fuel — if you take into account finance, rego, insurance and repairs, it adds up fast.) Problem is that somewhere in the sausage factory that is ... [More]
Spot the disclaimer at the top of the page? It’s because a growing number of journos seem to be finding my blog. Certainly nothing wrong with that; nice to see they’re on the cutting edge, gathering information from far and wide. Welcome, media people from everywhere! But I’ve had to emphasise to them that my ... [More]
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Missing the mark
There are times when your comments go through the sausage factory that is the modern media machine, and come out elegantly encapsulating the issue, raising legitimate concerns, and capturing public opinion. And then there are times like these: But Public Transport Users Association president Daniel Bowen said most peak hour commuters wouldn’t see the new ... [More]