Recently(ish) I’ve been walking along Nepean Highway opposite Moorabbin Station, and have snapped photos, with the view to eventually writing a blog post about how horrible it is for pedestrians. The footpath is narrow. Even narrower past the traffic lights. There’s no shelter, obviously, and the bridge railing isn’t very high. Worse, the traffic speeds past at 80 km/h. And the kerb seems to have been deliberately designed so as not to slow down a vehicle mounting it. Presumably it’s basically unchanged since 1958 when the rail line was moved under the road. Then I saw this police press relea ..read more

Julian O’Shea is doing a show for the Comedy Festival, and he got in touch and kindly offered me tickets. In about an hour, he goes through an A to Z of Melbourne, with plenty of interesting and very amusing detours. I haven’t laughed so much in quite some time. It’s all very funny, and all I can say is: if you like the stuff on my blog, you’ll like this. Julian approaches a range of topics about our city (and cities in general) with breadth and wit and knowledge, and plenty of surprises. In short, you should go see this! It runs until Sunday. Book here – and you can use the discount code DING ..read more

I missed doing this last month: ten year old photos from March 2014. Expansion of the rules banning smoking around public transport were very welcome. No more having to dodge the smokers on the platform to find a spot with clear air while waiting for a train. One of the biggest transport policies announced by the Napthine Government as the 2014 election approached: the Free Tram Zone and capping of Zone 1+2 fares at Zone 1 prices. Labor quickly matched it. Also announced that year: a plan to upgrade the Dandenong line, including four level crossing removals. This was overtaken by the Labor p ..read more

Don’t tell anybody, but sometimes I drive a car. I was at the northern end of Grange Road in Caulfield on Sunday afternoon when I saw a citybound train heading along the skyrail. Then I saw another one. They seemed very close together. So later I checked the dashcam footage: The end of the first train passed the stanchion on the right hand side of the picture at 18:31:10. The front of the second train passed the same stanchion at 18:31:46, just 36 seconds later. The end of the second train passed at 18:31:58, so that’s two trains passing in 48 seconds. The second train was signed Not In Servi ..read more

There’s a lot of talk of the cost of living crisis at the moment. Many are doing it tough. Transport costs are part of this – transport is vital for getting access to education and employment and other opportunities. It got me thinking about what governments could do to relieve family budgets. What types of investment and intervention provide benefits, and how much? Let’s try and work it out. The RACV’s car costs from 2022 (the most recent one I could find) provides information on the monthly costs of running a range of different cars – including loan payments, registration, memberships (RACV ..read more

The Vic government data for public transport monthly patronage by day type and mode got a refresh in mid-February, and now covers 2018 to the end of 2023. So I thought I’d do a few charts from this data. Let’s start with Melbourne’s trams. If I’ve done these charts correctly, you should be about to mouse over parts of the chart to see more info. You’ll notice some gaps in the charts, which are due to there often being few regular (non-school holiday) weekdays in January. We all know the basic story – patronage dropped in 2020 during the pandemic, and hasn’t come back on weekdays due to widesp ..read more

It’s end of the month, so here’s another batch of photos from ten years ago: February 2014. The State Election was 7 months away, and Labor launched its “Homesafe” all-night weekend public transport initiative. They won, and this was introduced as PTV’s Night Network. The Bumblebee trams were still in their yellow livery from their original home in Mulhouse, France. It always puzzled me why they would allow parking here, in part of one of the busiest bus stops in Melbourne. On a crowded train to Parliament with local Bentleigh electorate candidate Nick Staikos, for the “PT To Parliament” ev ..read more

Let’s recap the transport arrangements last weekend during the Taylor Swift concerts at the MCG. Three concerts, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights Crowds of about 96,000 per night – the biggest ever for Swift No general parking at the MCG/Yarra Park. Only pre-booked parking for Accessible Parking permit holders Free Tram Zone extended to the MCG for the three days – standard Myki fares for other ticketholders arriving by PT A planned weekend shutdown of the Werribee and Williamstown lines was postponed Smaller rail closures on the Frankston and Belgrave lines went ahead, though the Frankston ..read more

I thought these guys were dead. But there they were, large as life in the Bourke Street Mall on Valentine’s Day – which probably explains the balloons. Why? Honestly I don’t know, but the characters went way beyond the originals after the franchise was sold off in 2021 – almost to ridiculous extremes. Anybody want to buy a Dumb Ways NFT? (Though even this 2014 life insurance ad from Canada is pretty tacky.) Originally of course, it was just a rail safety campaign. Coincidentally this week I listened to a podcast from 2021 that goes into some detail about how the campaign was first created. I ..read more

Sorry, it’s quiet on the blog due to being so busy. I’ve got a bunch of half-written drafts, but will try and finish some of them soon. Another x01 shuttle service has joined the fold. So far we have: 201 Box Hill to Deakin Uni 301 Reservoir to La Trobe Uni 401 North Melbourne to Melboure Uni 601 Huntingdale to Monash Uni There’s also the 202 from Victoria Park to Melbourne Uni Bus routes 701 (Bentleigh to Oakleigh) and 901 (Frankston to Airport) aren’t shuttles. There is currently no 101 or 801. What about 501? That’s the new one – not a Uni shuttle; it runs from Donnybrook station to Craig ..read more