nathanpittman.bsky.social
PhD candidate, writing about the art of government of transport planning: maps as manifestations of power, models as inseparable from plans, questions of what planning is as questions of what it should be, and good planners as bad planners.
300 posts
282 followers
80 following
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Gosh this is really shit analysis, even for the Leader.
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The magpie looks pleased with your contribution!
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BUT: why not kick the cars out almost entirely?
Why shouldn’t Johnston/Elgin be something like a horizontal Swanston St?
Restrict private through traffic so that public buses don’t get stuck behind single occupant cars, the added bonus being less stressful riding conditions.
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Came here to say this.
These are busy buses: before covid, you’d often need to let a few past before you could get on and even now they’re often standing room only.
Sadly the petition ignores the critical role that Johnston/Elgin plays in the PT network for the inner north.
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It's not unusual in other places for cyclone-equivalents to venture beyond the tropics. Any mainland US hurricane counts here - think Sandy in New York, Katrina in New Orleans, Harvey in Houston.
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I did this this morning and I have precisely zero regrets.
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Besides which, credit card payments aren’t exactly the cutting edge.
App-based ticketing is where it’s at.
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See also Australia’s Utopia
youtu.be/8av3knflbQo?...
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Most of central Ballarat is car parking and oversized arterial roads.
Yet, you never hear any objections from those wishing to maintain Ballarat's cute historyness about the fact that it's more asphalt than city!
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I recall a few vintage Yarra Trams tweets telling passengers to use buses as an alternative - but it was Sunday and those buses didn’t actually run.
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But what about that time they didn’t pass the CPRS???!?!?!??!??
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Wait, what? The **operator** has asked **you** to send them a copy of the publicly available timetable? Because they’re working on an old one?
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It’s all on their website!
www.ancap.com.au/protocols-an...
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When ANCAP calculates the overall "safety" score, the pass mark for a 5-star rating for people outside the car (70%) is lower than for people inside the car (80%). And the 70% is only since 2023 - previously it was 60%.
Priorities!
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These suburbs wouldn’t have been built without the rail, though. The original UGB stopped at Leakes Rd, but when the RRL was planned and built, the UGB was expanded.
It’s still better than freeway based development, but not by much.
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This applies to family travel too: A two parent, three kid family can buy a year of unlimited PT across the whole state for just over $6,500
That's less than the average cost of car ownership (and they probably own two).
Again, they won't, because the service sucks. Making it cheap won't fix this.
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Contexts like this are common and they help us understand why people complain about the cost of PT.
For most people, Melbourne's PT just isn't useful enough to ditch their car and buy the annual pass that will give them zero marginal cost trips.
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The absolute, unmitigated class blindness of people who purport to give a shit about a cost-of-living crisis and demand free PT, but then completely overlook how industrial employment areas get shafted when it comes to PT access is astounding.
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If you look at some of the other indicators that make up the index, it’ll reveal why and how their measure of good PT varies between locations.
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Anyway - SNAMUTS is about the network and not individual locations. Poor bus-train connectivity at Moonee Ponds will impact the index at other stations on the C’burn line. Low evening train frequencies impact overall accessibility.
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The model also suggests that there’s a long band of very good to excellent access along the Caulfield to Footscray corridor, but should I ignore this because of some quirks in representation around certain stations?
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Can’t speak to the specifics of the calculations but:
1. It’s not a great reproduction. CBD excellence is lost to pixelation/labels,
2. The Port Melbourne - poor connections to other places. There’s two good lines to the CBD but the direct bus to StK is garbage.
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This is the thing - when we get around to increasing frequency on the Ballarat line, it’ll be to every 20 minutes. Problem remains obvious but unsolved.