Sections of single track on the Metro network are a direct cause of low frequencies, and cause delays to quickly cascade. In this example at Westona on the Altona Loop section of the Werribee line, a citybound train has to wait for an outbound train to arrive before it can continue on.

Similar bottlenecks are found on the Cranbourne, Belgrave, Lilydale, Hurstbridge and Upfield lines, preventing more frequent trains on those lines, and contributing to poor punctuality.

For Altona residents affected by poor train services (in part because of the single track) there’s a public meeting this Thursday night on this issue.

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The $9.80 fee for refunds of Myki credit was removed on the 1st of January this year. But it is still mentioned repeatedly on the online forms, causing many to believe it still applies.

In small print on the Myki web site does it say “Please note that the administration fee mentioned on some of the above forms no longer applies”, but many people don’t notice this.

Surely it can’t take four months to change the text on a PDF form?

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“V/Line patronage is booming, and the extra carriages are desperately needed”, said PTUA President Daniel Bowen. “While a few carriages will become available once the Sunbury electrification project is finished, the government clearly needed to act on ordering more.

“Passengers unable to find a seat, forced to sit in the aisles or stand for long periods of time, have become a regular occurrence on V/Line services. Expansion of the fleet is very welcome, and needs to be matched by a commitment to more frequent services, including at off-peak times when V/Line services currently run only once an hour.

“Let’s hope they don’t prematurely scrap older V/Line carriages as the new ones come in – we don’t want a repeat of the Hitachi trains fiasco.”

Mr Bowen said grade separation projects at Springvale Road, Springvale, as well as Mitcham and Rooks Roads in Mitcham would improve safety, and reduce delays for bus passengers, cyclists and pedestrians, as well as motorists.

But new funding for buses is limited to one route[1], and there is no commitment to fulfil the election commitments to construct Southland station, and to expand by 10 the current order for new trams[2].

“The very successful Monash University express shuttle bus trial has received recurrent funding, which is good news, but there is nothing at all for the rest of the bus and tram networks, and very little for Metro trains.

“If you’re in Melbourne’s outer suburbs, waiting an hour between buses, or squashed in like a sardine on trams and buses, there’s nothing for you in this budget”, said Mr Bowen.

“Despite it being a key pledge, we’re still waiting for Southland station, and so far the railway lines to Rowville and Doncaster have not moved past the study stage.

“Meanwhile the government is pushing ahead with the east-west road tunnel, which will merely entrench car-dependency, and do nothing to solve traffic congestion — in fact it may well make it even worse by encouraging more traffic into Melbourne’s inner-north. This represents a clear change in priority from public transport towards roads, and is bad news for Melbourne’s future sustainability and liveability.”

Mr Bowen warned that the government needed to push ahead on bringing high quality, frequent public transport services to more of Melbourne.

“The last election swung on public transport issues. Melburnians are looking for solutions to their transport woes, and the best fix traffic congestion is providing more frequent train, tram and Smartbus services right across Melbourne.”

* * *

[1] Government press release
http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/3771-coalition-invests-in-transport-for-the-future.html

[2] 2011 Budget Paper 3, Chapter 1, “Election commitments to be funded in future years” – page 77. (Note: 2012 Budget Paper does not list individual unfunded commitments.)

We already knew Metro was getting into the habit of having trains skip stops when running late, but now they’re taking it to new heights: a busy service to Frankston on Friday night was altered to bypass the majority of its scheduled stops.

For many passengers waiting on the platform, this was effectively a cancelled service. And we can only hope those aboard the train were told it was skipping so many stops.

While this train was scheduled to run back into the City after reaching Frankston, plenty of others at that time were going to stabling and could have run that citybound service to avoid knock-on delays. Or they could have altered the return service, which was against the peak direction and would have disadvantaged fewer passengers.

This is clearly Metro putting punctuality statistics ahead of passengers.

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New stations at South Morang, Cardinia Road and Lynbrook opened yesterday, which is great news. At Lynbrook a community event drew a big crowd, and just for the event, toilets were provided. Alas, they were taken away on the back of a truck afterwards.

South Morang is a Premium station, but the others aren’t.

With no toilets and also no staff on duty, let’s hope new train users at Cardinia Road and Lynbrook can figure out how to use the ticket machines and get to where they’re going.

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