In Melbourne we do this thing where we let developers build suburbs with zero infrastructure, refuse to put buses or other public transport in when asked because it’s “not viable”, then a decade later we will put a bus route in, but then bitch and whinge because nobody’s catching it. Then maybe 5 or 6 decades after that, we’ll order a feasibility study to see if we should build a train station there, then it’ll be deemed to expensive and we’ll wait another century before deciding to spend insanely high amounts of money on either building an underground station, or acquiring a shit ton of land.
If somebody would use their damn brains and realise it is cheaper and easier to at the very least plan for and reserve land in these new developments for public transport, and these new suburbs would stop being opened without bus stops, supermarkets, and GP clinics, we’d all be better off…
@Baku @ajsadauskas we could learn some things from China who are willing to build metro stations in the middle of overgrown fields they know will be developed in the coming years
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/chongqing-china-metro-station-nowhere/index.html
I think metro stations are a bit overkill, especially for Australia’s cities. I’d settle for the government releasing solid plans for train lines in new areas, and developers being required to cede the land for them while building out new suburbs. As well as increasing the taxes on those developers profits, directly into a fund to pay for the line to be built.
I can almost get to work on the bus in 30 minutes, but that bus in-turn only comes every 30 minutes. So I have to time it fairly well to get the bus as it comes. If I time it just right, it’s about 33-34 minutes to work.
Or, I can leave whenever I wish and cycle in 25 minutes; which is what I do whenever it isn’t raining.
Related: I’ve heard NIMBYs bringing up that “the bus is faster (may have a quicker journey time in certain conditions)” and because of this, stuff like light rail and quality BRT is a waste of time. It certainly isn’t faster if you have to wait for >30 min for it though because mixed traffic is an awful environment for generating and maintaining high frequencies and patronage and thus good investment. Our value assessment frameworks need work to say the least
Anyone who uses the word “fast” about busses clearly doesn’t regularly use them.
try 2 hours door to door. thank f for working from home!
Around 12-13 years ago, I had to fly from Melbourne to Sydney to meet with a customer. One of my colleagues who lived in Sydney was also going to the meeting. We left home at the same time. I beat him to the customer!
I was driven to/from the respective airports, he was on trains. But still - it was a bit ridiculous that I got there first.
Worst i had it was 1.5 hrs one way. Hated it.
What even are those bar charts meant to represent? Absolute number of people? That’d be a rather small percentage represented. Why do we even get a graph in absolute numbers when percentage is what we’re after?. When will journalists learn fucking graphs for once?!
