‘Take them away, crush them’: Australia faces an oversized yank tank surge that some say poses a health emergency Fixed it for you.

I love that he wrote an article like this and is still convinced that men, including himself, get to where they are based purely and unambiguously on merit.

All bicycles included in draft plan for mandatory helmets and high-vis, Department confirms irishcycle.com/2026/02/04/a...

This ought to fix the problem of students protesting against institutional ties to a state credibly accused of genocide and apartheid!

The stations between Sunshine and Watergardens on the Sunbury line have recently received a huge increase in service, with 10-min headways until 9pm. The connecting bus situation is still pretty dire, though. Improving this is critical if we want to get the most of the munnel.

According to both PTV and Google journey planners, a journey from Footscray to ACMI at Fed Square takes longer via the Munnel. It's 19 mins on a Werribee train and 25 mins on a Sunshine-Dandenong train. Why? Very long egress times from the Town Hall platforms.

Exhibit 123412 of PTV/Transport Victoria not understanding the importance of connections between different PT lines. The new 241 bus intersects with the 57 tram at Abbotsford St in North Melbourne, but the eastbound stop is at the next cross street, 290m away (5 mins for an able-bodied person).

The travel modelling that underpinned the Metro Tunnel and other railway expansions and extensions assumed that Melbourne would have this bus network by 2031. Red: 50 "SmartBus" lines, 10-minute headway. Green: 128 "direct" lines, 15-minute headway. How much of this has been realised?

Today dot gif.

We absolutely need to talk about the Atlas network more and more and more, especially regarding how they campaigned against the Voice to Parliament referendum.

How dare they legally use public roads for their intended purpose?!?

good grief the western half of the suburban rail loop is so poorly conceptualised

More post-Big-Switch timetable fun: this time, Craigieburn line (inbound, from Newmarket) 🚅 Two whole additional services per day. Wowee! 🚅 Interpeak frequency reduction starts earlier and finishes later 🚅 Minor improvement to evening frequency 🚅 The 8pm frequency cliff remains 👎 Thumbs down 👎

What if - and hear me out here - what if instead of pouring billions of public subsidies into a useless private health pyramid scheme, we fund the public system properly?

And the new official railways diagram is also available on the(P)TV website. 🚂 Time to think of a new naming convention for cross-city lines. 🚂 Or perhaps even a lettering/numbering scheme. 🚂 New "West Tarneit" station dropped.

It's not always immediately clear what the benefits of timetable changes are, but I've taken a closer look at the 402 and there are some welcome improvements: 🚌 Every 10 mins until 8pm instead of 7:15pm on weekdays 🚌 Finishes at 10:20pm instead of 9:30pm 🚌 W/E PM waits reduced from 40 to 30 mins

I emailed my local council saying, "hey, it would be great it you could plant a big stately tree at this location!" A council officer replied within a few days: "Do you mean here?" I'm cautiously optimistic that the simple act of emailing council will net me and my community a lovely new tree

It's funny because if this was something like installing PT priority at traffic lights, or building protected bicycle infrastructure, state/local govt would spend months upon months mired in public consultation only to say "nah, we won't because some cafe owner had a sook about traffic/car parking"

Because what Australian cities need is more cars on our streets.

Melbourne’s Munnelstations are actually IRL Escher prints. This explains the wildly illogical wayfinding while also finally putting an end to all the naysayers claiming the platforms are boring.

Exhibit 3415234 of Melbourne's PT planners fundamentally not understanding connections. • 8 mins is a very long walk to connect. • It's more like 11 mins, including platform access. • Add a child or a physical mobility limitation and watch that 11 mins turn into 20.

Louise Adler, on stepping down from the AWW board: "The board’s statement cites community cohesion, an oft-referenced anxiety which should be treated with scepticism. This is a managerialist term intended to stop thinking. Who, after all, would argue in favour of social division?"

The standard of evidence required to increase residential rents in Victoria is so wildly inconsistent between the parties. For a landlord to increase: "our method of calculation was that we added $50 to the existing rent". For a tenant to dispute: mountains of very specific and detailed evidence.

Spotted this in a train a couple weeks ago, forgot to post, blurred because I had luggage in hand. 🚇 Munnel shown in all light blue running from Sunbury through Pakenham/Cranbourne. 🚞 Werribee/Williamstown lines shown as through running to Sandringham in pink.

Here's a sample. Why on earth PTV is including stations that aren't on this line on the timetable is beyond me.

Post-Big-Switch timetables available: 🚂 Trains every 10 mins to Watergardens in the daytime, with every second train extending to Sunbury 🚂 10-minute frequencies in the Munnel until midnight, with every second train ends at WeFo 🚂 10-minute frequencies on weekends until midnight

There is a special place in hell for idiots who try to squeeze further into the crowded tram when you’re trying to disembark (shortly after proclaiming that they refuse to pay because it’s so crowded).

This is a problem. What are country folks without cars meant to do here? Does anyone have examples of PT operators playing an active role in disaster response?

Finally arrived in Melbourne, only four hours behind schedule.

Ah, the XPT. Not content in having just a two hour delay due to one of the power cars being busted, now we’re held up in Benalla for an unspecified amount of time due to a signalling fault.

So, this was this driver’s sixth driving offence since 2009 and he had been served two further infringement notices since the crash, but in 30 months, he’ll be permitted to drive again.

Have a sook, mate.

This article claims “the cost of collecting and policing fares eats up most – if not all – of the revenue collected”. My sense is this is incorrect, except for smaller towns and cities, or places that charge stupidly low amounts. Anyone have any data?

Properties include Mould Kent Road, Infested-by-a-Vine Street, Claiming Excessive Bond Street, and Water Works (but has a slight rust discolouration)

Context for non-Oz readers: 40 actual nazis stormed an Indigenous cultural site in Melbourne earlier this year, but we're to think that the epistemic permission to massacre a cultural event is produced when undergrads insist their unis don't finance genocide.

It's been incredible to watch how rapidly the conversation about the Bondi Beach attack has pivoted to "it's the fault of anti-genocide protestors" with no reflection whatsoever on the role of actual neonazi March for Australia gronks and the incels who stormed Camp Sovereignty a few months back.

Please, join me in my latest hobby: emailing polite but stern complaints to the IT support desk whenever they push updates that reinstalls friggin Copilot.

I would be interested to see Old Mate's take on the precision/reliability of business cases for suburban arterial upgrade program (i.e., road widening in the suburbs). Ain't going to happen, though: we would never subject road building to the same level of scrutiny.

Haymarket in Melbourne is a great example of intersection management that crams as many cursed cars through as possible, while also slowing trams down. 2011 changes saw general traffic lanes added and lights installed. Previously, trams had priority; now, they wait for lights.

A 4WD driver has killed a child in Melbourne's north-eastern suburbs. You can be sure the ensuing discussion will focus on the excessive power of e-bikes, and not on the excessive size and power of 4WDs or the repeated failure of the State government to provide a safe environment for bike riders.

Improved bus services are welcome (in the sense that something is better than nothing) but these improvements to the west's buses are about providing the bare minimum to keep up with population growth, rather than providing a robust alternative to driving.

Mmmm delicious… sand?

What’s the problem? Most car trips are less than 10km. Use public transport or walk or bike.

Incoming changes to Route 57 through North Melbourne to accommodate G-class trams. Positives: heaps of parking reductions, more space for tram passengers to wait, heaps of parking reductions. Negatives: some stops moved away from intersections, changes don't provide level boarding.

So, y’know how the Metro tunnel opening on Sunday was this fun day with gunzels and normies alike being all happy and joyful about a major infrastructural link finally opening… Reckon we’ll repeat that when the West Gate Tunnel opens?

The new Swanston St Railway Tunnel went through a few routing changes - a good thing for a project this size. Not shown is how the tunnel was going to be delivered in stages: first from Footscray to Domain, then Domain to Caulfield later.

Flemington Racecourse turn the frigging music down its Sunday night FFS.

Late addition to the negatives part of my metro tunnel review is that we bought cheap plastic-looking HCMTs instead of these gorgeous soviet contraptions. There’s still time to get it right; we could order these for the Sydney to Newcastle high speed line that is totally getting built.

++ Metro Tunnel Thinkings🚇💭 + way smoother ride than Sydney’s very bumpy metro, + some nice touches at the stations, especially with natural light at Arden & Parkville, + FSS to Town Hall transfer was faster/easier than expected, very dank passageway, + more of an S-Bahn/RER than a metro

The sheer sense of entitlement to public space that car drivers demonstrate is really quite mind blowing. It’s unthinkable that one would pull over on the road, because that would disrupt all that is holy i.e., traffic flow. Pedestrians and cyclists? Fuck ‘em.