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It should hardly be a surprise that anybody with a choice gets to Fountain Gate Shopping Centre by car. The centre has some of the most infrequent buses in Melbourne, and to cap it off, some passengers have to wait for buses in delightful spots such as this — with no seating and no rain cover.

Some routes use the main part of the interchange, which is a little better, but all of the bus stops are located an unpleasantly long distance from the entrance to the centre, while motorists can park right out front.

Passengers who give up on the bus (which of course doesn’t connect well with the local train services) and instead walk from Narre Warren Station will find it a confusing walk with little signage to guide them, and will have to navigate a way through multiple car parks and across several access roads to get there.

No wonder almost everybody drives instead.

(Yes, Fountain Gate is a real place — it’s not just from Kath & Kim.)

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Passengers on the Sydenham, Ballarat and Bendigo lines can breathe a sigh of relief: the two-week shutdown is over, and their trains are back. All things considered it seems to have gone fairly smoothly, with plenty of staff on the ground, plenty of buses, and strong efforts made to get them through the traffic without too many delays.

But there were problems with the information provided to passengers trying to find their way. While much of it was excellent, some had errors, or was misleading. Here are some examples:

1. Metro repeatedly ran ads with misleading headings, with some passengers seeing the above dates in MX and assuming the shutdown continued until this Thursday 21st.

2. Screens at CBD stations for the Sydenham line were often found blank.

3. Others advertised trains for Flemington Races, without advising who should use them (though announcements were generally made).

4. At Southern Cross (a repeat offender when it comes to incorrect screens and signage) they advertised trains to Flemington and had a screen referring to the St Albans Line. (It’s been called the Sydenham Line since the extension opened in 2002).

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The Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) has welcomed an end to the uncertainty over Myki, but criticised the dumping of single-use tickets for new and occasional public transport users.

“Finally, there is an answer – Myki will be staying”, said PTUA President Daniel Bowen. “But the apparent move to run the system only with reusable Myki cards, with no single-use tickets available, means a significant barrier to people who do not regularly use public transport – the very people we need to entice out of their cars.”

The state government’s plan is to remove vending machines from trams, and will be “eliminating to the extent possible the introduction of disposable short-term cards” [1]. Mr Bowen said this would mean that no single use tickets at all would be available once Metcard is scrapped.
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Lonsdale Street’s Smartbus services have been running for nine months now, and it’s not just the automated signs that aren’t complete. Many tram stops around the CBD have these handy multimodal maps… but they haven’t been updated with the new bus routes.

So don’t go to Lonsdale Street hoping to catch a 301, 304, 307, 308 or 319 bus. They’re now routes 905, 906, 907 and 908.

Maybe, eventually, the maps will be updated.

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The Public Transport Users Association has called on the Gillard Labor Government to ensure public transport users are not penalised relative to motorists under a future carbon price.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard stated on Sunday that motorists’ fuel purchases would be excluded from a carbon price in perpetuity.

However, the government has not made any guarantees about the effect on public transport costs. If electricity and fuel for trains, buses and trams is subject to a carbon price, as seems likely, public transport operators and authorities may be forced to pass the cost on to passengers through increased fares.
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It’s a perennial problem for tram passengers at the southern end of Elizabeth Street: which tram leaves first? At one time there was a sign to answer this question, but these days, unless you’re going far enough that you need a specific route, it’s guess work.

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Over the last ten weeks, we’ve sought each day to highlight problems in public transport which sometimes go unnoticed, but which cause delays and issues for passengers trying to use the system. We plan to continue this series weekly (every Monday) from today.

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There are services to Williamstown until around midnight of course (catch a Werribee train and change at Newport), but these screens at Flinders Street seemed to think trains had ceased for the night.

Hopefully staff nearby would have known where passengers needed to go, but having accurate, complete information would obviously be a big help.

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It’s no secret that the Sydenham, Ballarat and Bendigo lines will be interrupted for major rail works for two weeks. But the information about it is unclear.

This ad from Metro in Thursday’s MX quotes three different dates for the start of the works — Thursday 30 June, Friday 1 July and Saturday 2 July.

Many passengers assumed it meant trains would not run yesterday, but (as far as we can gather from information provided by Metlink) it’s actually from today that bus replacement services run.

We can only hope that information on the ground is clearer to passengers on Monday morning.

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Public transport is a vital service to Victoria, and understandably some users want to know what the government is doing to improve it — and whether taxpayer funds are being spent wisely.

One PTUA member recently received this reply back from an enquiry as to what the Department of Transport are doing about delays on his regular bus route.

The answer, in short, is mind your own business.

No wonder many are calling for an open, accountable public agency to take over public transport planning and management — let’s hope the Coalition government’s new Public Transport Development Authority is up to the job.

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(Emphasis has been added.)