Route 112 - Superstops, but where are the low floor trams ?

Tram Route 112 from West Preston to Fitzroy Street St Kilda has had new superstops introduced in several locations, but doesn't have any low floor trams.

According to the government, the Melbourne tram network does not have to be fully Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) compliant by 2032, but try telling this to the booming number of patrons using the trams.

Accessibility is not just for the disabled. The Port Phillip area is fast becoming a baby boom area with tonnes of prams. On many of the older Z and B class trams which run the route, you can't fit a full size pram through the doors.

Except for the occasional diversion of the route 96 trams down route 112, this busy route does not get any low floor trams.

A recent article in the Herald Sun, titled "Stops for disabled wait for low-floor trams" highlights this ridiculous situation.

Melbourne Airport Train Link - Yes Please !

In 2001, the state government investigated the construction of a heavy rail link to Melbourne Airport as part of an election promise to build the rail link. Currently there is no alternative but by road, and other cities like Sydney and Brisbane enjoy world class airport links. Brisbane's Airtrain even made a profit after just a few years of operation.

In 2008, we're still getting investigations, but apart from buying a land reservation, nothing has been done and the pollies keep bringing up silly excuses.

Having caught a full Skybus even at early hours of the morning, I know that such a link would definitely work.

So it is pleasing to see the media get back on to the airport link topic and the government entertain the idea once again, even if it is just lip service.

Fill the early morning gap in tram services !

I sometimes travel interstate from Melbourne for business and holidays and to get the best and most affordable flights I need to catch planes quite early. I've realised how difficult it can be without a car to get to the airport at certain times of day.

The 96 tram takes me from St Kilda to Southern Cross in around 15 minutes which is great. I often catch a Skybus or Sunbus from Southern Cross station to Tullamarine or Avalon, they are designed to match up with every flight. The problem is that the tram system is not designed to match up with every bus.

The last few times I have gone there are no tram services whatsoever. The first tram is not until 5:20 (or 7:20 on a Sunday), which is too late for me to get to the airport. The latest trams the night before are about 1am. If I caught one of them I'd be getting no sleep and waiting around Southern Cross Station for around 4 hours.

So I must admit that due to poor public transport, I have been late for a flight on more than one occasion.

The alternative is to book a cab. One Saturday night the cabs were so busy that I couldn't book one. Kingsway is always busy anyway, so the cabs always crawl into the city no matter what time of day. I guess I should have booked the day before. It is also much more expensive to travel this way, as a fare into the city is nearly $20 and an airport fare (especially to Avalon) is much much more.

I already have a pre-paid Metcard for travel, and I'm not sure why I should have to fork out extra for a cab just because Yarra Trams can't be bothered running a service to fill the gap. I would ride my bicycle, but the bike lockers at Southern Cross are poor and it isn't always easy to carry your travel bags on a bicycle.

What would be fantastic is for Yarra Trams to run a single service at 3am or 4am to fill the void in between services.

That way even if you leave early, you can actually get to the airport. The 96 is arguably Melbourne's busiest tram line and early peak trams are packed in like sardines anyway, I am sure that this will only help to reduce the congestion on later services. And to really work, it would not just be for Route 96, but any line that is connected to Spencer Street Station. Everyone should have equal rights to get to Melbourne Airport on time by public transport.

I've spoken to Yarra Trams about this situation. According to them unfortunately due to privatisation, they claim that they can't afford o run a single service in isolation and they need consistent demand to run consistently early services. So they'd need to gradually add earlier services at 5:10, 4:40 etc. What that means is that filling the void isn't possible unless the government decides to subsidise it or takes control back of the system and it is the government that gets the final say. If the government is serious about sustainability, it would realise that it is not just plane travel which is emmitting unnecessary greenhouse gases, but getting to and from the airport as well.

Hell, why not just build a train line to the airport, that way we wouldn't have to rely on buses to get us there in the first place !

Maybe I can dream of living in a city which provides public transport that is genuinely "public" and usable.

Public Transport on the Mornington Peninsula Sux ...

Having ditched the car and become a fan of Metlink's trip planner, I decided to plan my trip to Rosebud on Melbourne's public transport, knowing well that it would be a long trip, but I did not expect what I found.

My wife who has lived there thought that I was joking, having first hand experienced just how hard it is to get around down there.

For those who don't know, Rosebud is a suburb of Melbourne, located in the sprawling Mornington peninsula corridor. The suburb is around 75 kilometres south of Melbourne little over an hour by car on the Mornington Peninsula Freeway. Approximately 120,562 people live in Frankston and a further 136,482 live in the area along the bay beyond Frankston, which is similar to the population of Geelong, but more spread out and swells further with tourists during summer.

Upon checking Metlink's trip planner, I was astounded to discover that catching public transport between St Kilda and Rosebud would take between 4 hours and as long as 14 hours !! The average trip was over 6 hours !!!

Not only would the trip have taken a long time, but it would have to cross a minimum of 3 modes, extensive walking and in some instances as many as 5 bus trips, a train trip and 2 tram trips !!

The best services is the Night Rider, which only run on Fridays and provide a 2 mode bus/train service to the city. This is still painfully slow, and obviously good for the partygoers who don't want to drive home drunk, but no good if you don't plan to visit on a Friday night ...

And the situation only gets worse on weekends. Metlink only bothers to advertise 3 available trips on a Saturday and a solitary trip on a Sunday which would take 14 hours and 13 minutes and leave my legs paralised from exhaustion.

And we live in which century ? I'm sure in the old locomotive days I could have gone all the way down the peninsula in much less time.

While the cost of a zone 2 (since zone 3 has been abolished) daily ticket is reasonable, the travel times are ludicrous.

I truly feel for the people who live in these areas. They would be hit by increasing oil prices more than anyone.

Frankston has a railway line, but it should extend much further into the growing suburbs which lie beyond. There is a Mornington Tourist railway and a Stony Point V-Line, but nothing that operates to Mornington or beyond to Portsea and Sorrento (whoes residents are more likely to drive a Toorak tractor than feel the need to catch a bus).

Thank goodness, that at least two successive transport ministers at least recognise the problem.

Pedestrians and Bicycles shouldn't mix

As a regular bicycle rider, nothing shits me more than pedestrians who stand in a bike lane.

But it is worse when they are actually encouraged to.



This is the situation on any given weekend at South Melbourne market.

The takeaways along the street see people queue up on the footpath and block bikes despite the markings and oblivious to bicycles approaching behind them. I mean would you queue up for takeaway on the road ?

Good on Port Phillip council for trying to do the right thing by bicycles, but they have botched this up by stupidly installing a marked cycle path at the same level as the footpath on one of the most frequently used routes to the Melbourne CBD. The lanes are a great idea, but they should have thought about the deadly combination of takeway and bike path and tried to do something better to separate people from the bikes.

With people consistently standing in what is supposed to be a dedicated lane for them, cyclists are forced onto a narrow and extremely busy road, which has absolutely no provision for bicycles. What is more is that this is an accident waiting to happen. Not all cyclists are as patient or tolerant as I am and you'd think that councils would have learnt from the recent death of a pedestrian in a cycling incident. Not that this area is exactly a designated "Hell Ride" path, but these people are simply unsuspecting ten pins ....

On my journey last Sunday, and in a state of frustration and disbelief, I doubled back to take the photo.

South Melbourne Market management apologised to me and said they will do something soon.

So Brisbane's getting their tram network back ...

Great news for my old home, Brisvegas, the city that constantly tried to be Melbourne, is that it finally, after years of lobbying and planning getting a piece of Melbourne and some civilised public transport - their own inner city tram network.

But what I can't help but wonder is while Brisbane, Sydney, the Gold Coast and Cairns and even Fraser Island ! accelerate their plans for extensive light rail systems, Melbourne hasn't invested significanly in its system for decades. Sure there is the Box Hill and Knox extensions and a token Docklands extension, but that is nothing compared to the money being invested by other cities, and Melbourne continues to sprawl outward at an amazing rate.

I love trams, they are far superior to buses in their reliability, capacity, accessibility and comfort, and I am glad that city planners are starting to realise it. Only problem is, on every line near me, the trams are always packed beyond capacity to the point where some of them simply just pass leaving people at stops. The private operators continue to run lean services and small carriages which severely deter customers. We have the makings of the best integrated rail system in the world, but it is being neglected and abused in favour of new freeways and tunnels. There are major gaps in the network which could be solved by extensions as short as half a kilometre to connect train and tram termini.

While other cities are progressive, Melbourne's planning mentality, like much of its "new" architecture seems to be very retro. Get over it guys, the Olympic Games were 50 years ago ...