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The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has welcomed today’s announcement that the broad gauge rail line from Seymour to Albury will be standardised and upgraded under a deal between the Commonwealth and Victorian governments, but criticised the rail “bypass” plan that will see Wodonga’s station moved.
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In response to overcrowding, public transport users are calling for an urgent upgrade to evening off-peak train services in Melbourne. According to the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA), evening services should be upgraded to operate at the same interval as daytime (between peak) services. This move would apply to all lines, with evening trains operating every 15 minutes on most lines.

“The current half-hourly service is extremely poor and does not meet twenty-first century standards,” said Jeremy Lunn, spokesman for the PTUA. “The existing timetables are way out of date, too infrequent and don’t meet the expectations of the public.”
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The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has welcomed the Commonwealth and State Governments’ pledge to grade separate the Springvale Road level crossing in Nunawading. However, it says that Springvale Road should not be done in isolation and that other crossings on the line need to be eliminated simultaneously.

“Springvale Road and Mitcham Road are two of the three most dangerous level crossings in Victoria and both should be eliminated at the same time,” said Jeremy Lunn, the PTUA’s Outer East Convenor. “It also makes sense for the Rooks Road level crossing to be abolished together with the other two.”
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The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has slammed Ivanhoe Labor MP Craig Langdon’s call for a freeway between Bulleen and Greensborough. This recent move by Langdon comes despite multiple promises that he would resign if this freeway were ever constructed.
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Slides now available for download

Public forum: 15 June 2008

Hear what the world’s leading climate scientists are discovering about the speed of climate change, the potential impacts on our way of life, and what we need to do to safeguard our future. Read the rest of this article »

The PTUA today presented its petition for the Canterbury Road SmartBus to Robert Clark MP, Member for Box Hill. The petition, consisting of over 380 signatures, was presented by Outer East Convenor Jeremy Lunn and PTUA member Andrew Sadauskas at the Box Hill bus interchange.
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Because it will help enable more frequent services, the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has cautiously approved of proposals to re-design suburban train interiors.

“The current design of carriages is grossly inefficient”, said PTUA president Daniel Bowen. “The ‘wall’ of seats in the Comeng and X’Trapolis trains results in almost all standees milling around the doorways, because it is physically difficult to move further into the train. And all the recent models of trains have almost nothing for those standing to hold onto.”

The PTUA believes that the proposed changes will fix these problems, meaning less crowding in doorways, resulting in faster loading (“dwell”) times, allowing more frequent trains to be run on the busiest parts of the network.
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The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has called for an end to the archaic practice of terminating Alamein shuttle trains at Camberwell.

“This practice is way out of date and ought to be replaced by running direct Flinders Street trains,” said Jeremy Lunn, the PTUA’s Outer-East Convenor.
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The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has welcomed upgrades to public transport announced in the state budget, but warned that more needed to be done to provide Victorians with sustainable transport choices.

“There are certainly some welcome upgrades that have been announced, but nowhere near what’s really needed to provide relief from chronic traffic congestion and record oil prices”, said PTUA president Daniel Bowen. “While some will notice some improvements to their services, people who currently have no choice but to drive will find little relief, and will continue to fall victim to rising petrol prices.”
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Here is more detail of figures published in today’s Age, in the article New road cash five times funding of rail.

There are sometimes claims of “balance” between public transport and roads, but in the past ten years, some five times more has been spent expanding Melbourne’s road network ($1.7 billion), compared to building tram and train extensions ($322 million). Even now, new government road spending is double new public transport spending. If private tollways are counted, more than four times as much has been spent on new roads in the past ten years than public transport infrastructure.

Transport network expansion is not really about dealing with how people travel now — it’s about how you want them to travel in the future. The saying “build it, and they will come” applies here — if we want more people to travel by road, we should keep expanding the road network. If we want more people to travel by public transport, we should provide more public transport.
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