Parking

Now that I drive to work, things such as parking interest me. My workplace is in a major suburban centre that has all kinds of businesses and is a transport hub for commuters to and from other places. Most Office buildings, like the one I work in, have on site parking. Some have enough parking for all employees, some don't. Lets just say that I don't think mine does, because my company charges about $100 a month for the privilege, deducted from salary. Being a contractor I don't think I'm even eligible. A friend of mine who works for a different company up the road a bit gets free parking.

Now this forces most people to seek parking elsewhere. The council in their wisdom has created a buffer around the area ranging from maybe 500 metres to nearly 1 kilometre in some cases that is either metered, time limited or both. The time limit ranges from an hour in our street, which is also ticketed, to two hours in outlying residential streets. Often it is unlimited parking on one side of the street and 2 hour on the other. No matter which way you look at it the council rakes in the revenue.

This forces people like me to park in residential streets far away. I've walked upto 2 km in each direction between my car and work in the past. I don't mind the walk so much as for me it is pretty good exercise. I've become lazy lately and will drive past work in order to park nearer. I used to park in a spot that was on the way to work and walk the rest of the way, sometimes 2 km as mentioned.

Another effect is that the lack of parking also creates situations where people will squeeze cars into the tightest spots as shown in the above image, and I've seen this same car squeeze into this space on more than one occasion.

Oh what a feeling - Yes I bought a car

After much uming and ahing I finally bought a car. Nothing very special, but it is my first car so I am quite proud. It is a 2008 Toyota Corolla sedan. It's the Ascent model, so just the basic equipment level. Call me lazy, it's an automatic.

Safety wise it has 2 airbags and ABS, but no stability control. Fuel wise at 1.8 litres the engine promises to be quite fuel efficient. I filled it up the night I got it and it took just under $50 worth of petrol. The petrol needle is still sitting above the full mark after driving over 70 km since the refill (I expect it to start dropping fast any day now). If I can be bothered I will check the fuel efficiency and usage stats on the car computer at some stage.

So far it has left a good impression on me. After mostly driving more powerful cars (albeit heavier too) I didn't know what to expect. It accelerates very smoothly and likes climbing hills more than the Subaru Liberty I was driving earlier in the year. The steering at fist seemed a bit iffy, it has a different "road feel" than I was used to, but I'm getting used to it.





I think I'll get rid of the car dealer number plate thingys and sticker on the back window as they clash with the black theme going on with the car.

Impressions of Eastlink

So on Sunday I went for a cruise down Eastlink to see what the fuss was about. The trouble was there were a lot of other insane people doing the same thing. There was a traffic jam just before the tunnel entrance (in both directions). I'm not sure what caused it, I suspect there was some sort of wave effect going on.

The verdict?

It's quick. Starting from the Eastern Freeway it gets you to the Frankston traffic jam way faster than taking Springvale Rd. All up it took us about 25-30 minutes end to end, and a total travel time of about 1.5 hrs Mornington to Greensborough (that includes 20-30 minutes stuck in the Frankston traffic jam).

One thing that I noticed is a weird resonance in the road that causes subtle vibrations that make your voice go wobbly if you go "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh". Probably a conspiracy with suspension/tyre manufacturers and fitters and or orthopaedic surgeons to increase business.

On the environmental front I noticed there was much landscaping involved, with several wetlands located along side the road and the Dandenong Creek. No doubt these were put in place to soak up any pollutants seeping into nearby waterways. As for noise pollution, they have installed noise barriers along much of the length of the road. These aren't your normal everyday concrete "stone henge gone mad" noise barriers. These are of the bright and colourful left overs from the 70s, see-through orange and green noise barriers. I'm sure some residents of Dandenong North now enjoy some of the most beautiful green sunsets you can see on earth.

Overall, I think if it is your business to drive around, then the $5ish one way toll would be worth it, both in time and fuel savings ... For now.

That said, I don't support the building of more motorways (free or toll) the money could have been better spent upgrading Melbourne's public transport network. Supposedly there is space in the median reserved for heavy and light rail, I won't be holding my breath. I also believe that room was reserved in all the entrance/exit ramps for bus stops, again, keep breathing. The bicycle path alongside is a token gesture.

Rail to Doncaster

In The Age today is an opinion piece written by Graeme Davison. He rightly asserts that the Doncaster rail line should have been built 40 years ago when the area began to be heavily developed, but is against the building of a line because of the issues involved with tunnelling and the fact it would travel along the Eastern Freeway away from where the potential passengers live:

Yet, for more than half its length, a Doncaster railway would run through the Yarra Bend National Park and across the parkland and golf courses of the Yarra River flats. Golfers and bushwalkers might welcome it, but it would generate next to no commuter traffic. At North Balwyn (Burke Road), passengers would alight about half a kilometre from the nearest houses, while on the north side of Bulleen station, students from Marcellin College are about the only prospective customers. The line would cross Doncaster Road about 1.5 kilometres from the main transport and shopping hub, Shoppingtown. You would either have to tunnel several kilometres under Shoppingtown to East Doncaster, extend the Doncaster tramway to Shoppingtown or rely on feeder buses to reach a station on Doncaster Road.

Davison claims that the railway would travel mostly through parkland and would not create patronage. He seems to conveniently forget that the freeway runs through there too, and does not gain much in the way of traffic from those areas either.

Davison also asserts that you would need to tunnel for kilometres under Doncaster Shoppingtown to East Doncaster. I don't know where he has been for the last 40 years, but a vast amount of tunnelling has always been on the agenda in the Doncaster area. This is not a new thing, and in fact it will help bring the line closer to where the people are, something he uses against the building of the line in the same paragraph.

Davison goes on to claim that:

Transport research shows the reluctance of commuters to put up with bad connections. Any break in transport mode — say, from bus to train — creates frustration, especially if the scheduled service doesn't come. If the Doncaster rail requires a network of feeder buses, the passengers might as well stay aboard the existing express bus services and ride down the freeway along a dedicated lane all the way to the city. Maybe that's why the Eddington report hasn't opted for a Doncaster railway but for a major upgrade of the existing DART (Doncaster Area Rapid Transit) bus service. You may be asking: but don't buses run on polluting and fast-depleting oil? Yes, but although trains run on clean and abundant electricity, that power is generated from the most polluting of all fossil fuels, brown coal. It's only when trains and trams are full that they come out ahead of cars. Railways and trams wear a halo of environmental respectability that is only half-deserved.

To that I say that if the rail frequency and feeder bus frequency are sufficiently high then issues of missed connections will not be a problem. If the rail frequencies on this line were near metro levels (and I would expect the Doncaster line to be part of a segregated network than an extension of the current system) of a train every 5 minutes in peak and every 10 minutes in off peak. Have the feeder buses run every 10 minutes on main roads intersecting the rail line throughout the day, which means the longest connection in the peak would be about 5 minutes and at most 10 minutes off peak. Overall this would equate to an average waiting time for the whole journey of 7.5 minutes peak and 10 minutes off peak. If the connections are good (and by current Melbourne standards these are very good), people will use them.

He does make a good point with the fact that we get our electricity from brown coal. Cleaner and more sustainable energy sources are something that we need to work on. However that does not diminish the fact that all forms of public transport whether powered by electricity generated by burning brown coal, or by burning diesel fuel in a combustion engine, are more efficient at moving large amounts of people than cars are.

This paragraph confuses me though:

The Melbourne 2030 plan was based on the shaky assumption that increasing residential densities around the main public transport system would improve the viability of public transport. But even when density increased, residents often continued to drive their cars. Now there is a swing in the other direction, towards the equally erroneous belief that if you provide the transport, the residential patterns will change and the passengers will come. The Doncaster railway dream is a perfect illustration of that belief.

If anything Davison appears to be having a punt each way in this paragraph. What little development that has occurred under the auspices of Melbourne 2030 has been stymied by contrary government policies and local interests. I would argue that because of this densities have not increased that much in the Melbourne 2030 transit cities. The reason the few new residents continued to drive is exactly as he states, the public transport improvements were not forthcoming, and while they are slowly happening are not happening fast enough. The government is to blame for not having enough will to back up it's own strategies. If anything you only need to look to Perth for examples of where this sort of strategy has been implemented successfully with the Northern Suburbs rail line. In comparison a rail line to Doncaster should be child's play.

In his final paragraph Davison is spot on by stating that public transport needs to be constructed at the time of development, and should have been the case at Doncaster. He is also right that the there needs to be a rail service along Wellington Rd to Monash University and Rowville where there is also a high demand for such services, but there is demand in Doncaster as well.

Cars v Pedestrians

This started as a comment in Andrew's blog (does this title look familiar?), but thought I may as well continue on here:

Last week I was crossing a busy road not far from my house with the traffic lights, and nearly got ran over by a woman doing a right hand turn. This particular intersection consists of a major 6 lane road with median strip, a local side street, and the entrance to a railway station carpark. I was crossing from the station to the side street on the right hand side of the road facing on coming traffic. I set out across the road when the green man appeared (not an alien!), as I crossed the median I checked over my shoulder for cars turning right. As I stepped out into the roadway I realised that the car was not slowing down and so took a step back onto the median. At this point she braked, but because I'd stepped back shed continue on. Maybe I should have held my ground, but I didn't want to get ran over (obviously). What really annoyed me though was the fact that she mouthed a thank you as she drove past. All I could do was stand there with my arms open in a questioning gesture as it happened too quick for me to form words in my mouth.

This intersection has always been dangerous to cross at due to drivers in a hurry to get out of the station car park, and it's pretty much the only legal way to get to the station from that side of the road. For as long as I can remember this intersection has had flashing "watch for pedestrians" signs for cars doing right hand turns into the major road.

Last year an old woman was killed by a vehicle doing a right hand turn in exactly the same location. (I believe the vehicle was a bus, but don't quote me.) Afterwards there was a campaign by residents and the local ward councilor to improve the pedestrian crossing. This was somewhat successful, and resulted in some tweaking of the traffic light sequence by extending the walk time and larger brighter LED "watch for pedestrians" signs. The extended walk sequence allows you to get about half way across the intersection before the lights go green for cars traveling in the same direction and turning right (left hand turns from these directions have always been controlled by arrows). This is the point at which I nearly got hit last week, and was certainly not the first time, I've had many a close call at this location in the same circumstances. There is no room for either an underpass or overpass due to powerlines being located in the exact spot you'd put them (more on the effectiveness of these in slightly different circumstances at Peter Parker's blog), and short of having a "pedestrians only-only" time in the intersection I don't know what can be done.