Beyond the Murray
Crossing the metaphorical Murray into new transport topics!
Sorry guys – I agree we do need to start broadening out our topics beyond Melbourne though I realise that is what most people are familiar with.
I will start a series looking at urban rail transport in Brisbane which will tie in with the recent release of the report discussing an Inner City network of tunnels, loosely described as “metro” but probably more in name than in spirit or fact.
I have blogged recently on this issue as well if you are interested.
Too much to do! Working on the Pakenham series, my training tracks and dealing with current topics such as metro rail proposals, urban planning and contributing to others’ posts and blogs, and doing my own blog.
Some of my hobbyhorses I have worked on on Railpage and on my blog, such as the use of Stadtbahns in smaller capitals, I will leave for the moment as the political momentum of Adelaide pursuing this course of action will serve as a good example for other jurisdictions.
If anyone is interested, I would love to read and contribute to a discussion on the Gold Coast light rail proposal. You’re probably all as busy as I am though. And there are plenty of good Melbourne topics to keep up with. Best wishes to all.
Looking forward to reading the Brisbane series, Riccardo.
Perhaps we need to attract more interstate contributors to get rid of some of the Melbourne bias. Will need more interstate content first to do that.
Did you see any flaws in the way that I wrote the post on regional local rail services? I cannot say that I have written that kind of thing before – could do more on NSW if I can be bothered.
Personally, I don’t mind reading this blog even if it has a slight tendency to discuss about issues relating to Melbourne, as many of the issues are the same ones facing several public transport networks globally.
If you were looking for stuff from across the Tasman, I could probably make a comment or two from time to time.
Thanks to both. SITWWW your post was excellent. Certainly got people thinking about the issues. I think the smaller cities are hostage to 3 things: is public transport good enough anyway (non-rail) and therefore a bridge to build an excellent rail-based system on.
Secondly, is the population and urban layout supportive of a local rail system.
Finally, is the city too close to the orbit of a large capital city, such that the real purpose of that system is to feed commuters into the larger capital city, rather than keep them local. On this latter point, Geelong yes, Wollongong yes, Newcastle somewhat.
Thanks Johnston and hope you might put a NZ post up from time to time if you are interested.
I would particularly be interested in your perspectives on:
-planning and funding a rail system without the certainty of rising export prices that Australia has enjoyed
-how and why Auckland and Wellington differ so much (and to Australian eyes…perplexingly so) and would Christchurch and Dunedin be different again.
-perspectives of how much support road and rail charging and spending have, given that, in theory, the ‘level playing field’ is so much more level in NZ than here.
[...] Beyond the Murray [...]
As a casual observar, I’d be quite interested to read about NZ topics as well as the Australian topics Riccardo has mentioned. Keep up the good work guys, both here, and on your own blogs.
Riccardo, another topic which I thought might be interesting was one raised by colinw at your blog earlier this year, (commenting on your post on the gradient effect). http://railhobbies.blogspot.com/2007/04/training-track-gradient-effect.html
Colin mentioned that there were a number of obvious ‘low hanging fruit’ spur lines in Brisbane which seem to have been overlooked. Meanwhile the decision to build a spur line to Richlands surprised many. I wonder whether this is perhaps a topic for a post. … perhaps you could contact colinw and see whether he could write about some of his ideas for low hanging fruit spurs.
Thanks A.
Yes, maybe Colinw would like to write it!
My point about spurs was not to build them for the sake of building rail lines, but to counter the argument that it was ‘too late’ for the rail system as major trip generators are ‘off-line’ and that these people can never be captured to the rail system.
My point, using Melbourne as an example, was that some of the major ones eg Chadstone, Monash University, the Airport, were only 2-3 kilometres from the nearest main line and the fact that these would be spur lines should not be a deterent; Thornlie in Perth and numerous overseas examples put paid to that objection. Auckland is about to get 2 more at Onehunga and Manukau City.
I would object to building rail lines for its own sake, but where a major trip generator could rope in extra customers by the tens of thousands, with only a few kms of track to build, it should be considered.
Brisbane has a unique situation, not so much that major trip generators are off-line (though it is true in a few cases) but that some legacy lines provide a unique opportunity to create new markets with relatively low investment. Thinking here of Caboolture West, Waterford West (Beaudesert line), Mango Hill off the line at Petrie, Acacia Ridge.
These sites also provide a unique opportunity to provide or enhance a ‘layered’ service which is also an argument that can be made.
I’m conscious of course that Brisbane is a much lower density city and fewer obvious opportunities to really bulk up the service the way Sydney and Melbourne are now demanding. Nevertheless, a combined case for spurs and layered services would be a good read.
Maybe ColinW has some more to add to what I’ve written here.
Just a suggestion – if this is to be a national site and not just a Victorian site with the odd interstate topic, it should be presented as one.
For example; presently the ‘Technical’ link only goes to a site on Victoria, and ‘Advocacy’ has two Victorian groups. There’s a post titled “Our problem in a nutshell” which is to do with Melbourne, but the title is very generic and does not indicate where it is from.
Pedantry over, I should be doing a post on CountryLink within the next few weeks. Before I can do that, I’ll be going for a train trip in order to get some first-hand experience of the issue (not that I haven’t caught an XPT or Xploder before, but all of my trips have been in the one area).
Thanks everyone and agree Somebody with the idea of indicating whether the post is local. Rather than be tacky about it and writing (Vic) as they did in Railpage – people might like to title their posts with the name of city or state in the title if relevant to the topic.
I’m glad Mr Angelico posted his article here but of course he may be reluctant to generalise the topic outside Victoria.
I’ll try to ensure my theoretical examples are generalised; of course Melbourne probably is the best ‘microcosm’ of transport problems and is ripe with examples!