FW: snippets, Wed.16.8.17
  Roderick Smith

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From: Roderick Smith [mailto:rodsmith@werple.net.au]
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170816W Melbourne 'Herald Sun'- energy. with tdu.

170816W Melbourne 'Age' - Bourke St (Daniel Pockett).

Roderick.

Melbourne Express: Wednesday, August 16, 2017. [nothing rail or tram today; all taxi vs uber].
<www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-express-wednesday-august-16-2017-20170815-gxx0yc.html>

August 15 2017 New M4 toll funnels more motorists onto Sydney's Parramatta Road.
Traffic has been significantly heavier on Parramatta Road, one of Sydney's most congested roadways, due to motorists using it to avoid the first day of tolls on a widened stretch of Sydney's M4 motorway between Parramatta and Homebush.
After a month-long toll holiday ended on Tuesday, motorists began forking out for the journey as toll gantries on the M4 were activated for the first time since 2010. The distance-based tolls range from $1.77 to $4.56 each way for cars and motorbikes, or $5.30 to $13.67 for trucks and other heavy vehicles.
Travel times in both directions along western parts of Parramatta Road blew out by about 20 per cent on Tuesday. Traffic was also queued for up to 4 kilometres along Woodville Road from where it intersects with Church Street at Parramatta.
Transport for NSW said it was not unexpected to see motorists avoid the M4, which was "normal for the opening of any new toll road".
"While the arterial road network is coping, we would expect motorists to experience more congestion on those routes at this stage, and we are pulling out all the stops to help traffic run smoothly as motorists adjust to the changes," a spokeswoman said.
"As motorists weigh up the travel benefits offered by the motorway with the cost of the toll, we expect to see traffic flows normalise."
While motorists endured slower journeys along Parramatta Road on Tuesday, travel times on the widened M4 were similar to those before the toll was imposed.
The 7.5-km section of the M4 between Parramatta and Homebush has been widened at a cost of about $500 million from three to four lanes in each direction as part of the first stage of the $16.8 billion WestConnex motorway project.
Tolls on the widened M4 and other parts of WestConnex will rise by as much as 4 per cent a year. Photo: Nick Moir
Motorists' response to the tolls over the coming months will be the first test for the 33-kilometre WestConnex, the final stage of which is due to be completed by 2024.
The business case for the project forecast higher weekday traffic on sections of Parramatta Road west of Homebush in 2031 with WestConnex than without..
However, it predicted a significant decline in traffic on much of Parramatta Road east of Strathfield by 2031 as a result of the first stage of WestConnex.
Tolls were removed from the M4 in 2010, and the government has justified their reintroduction by saying they will go towards paying for WestConnex.
Labor transport spokeswoman Jodi McKay said motorists were taking Parramatta Road to avoid a toll that should not have been imposed.
"We will be campaigning right up to the next election on this because this toll should not be on the M4. You can't put a toll on a road that is not new," she said. "Motorists will use Parramatta Road because they don't want to pay a $4.56 toll each way."
Ms McKay said Labor wanted to see funding earmarked for the proposed Beaches Link to Sydney's north-east being used to pay for the widened M4, instead of tolls.
However, she said it did not oppose tolls on what she termed new parts of WestConnex, such as an extension of the M4 between Homebush and Haberfield.
WestConnex Minister Stuart Ayres said drivers were expected to test other roads when the tolls started on the M4, which was what occurred on the M7, the Eastern Distributor and the Lane Cove and Cross City tunnels under Labor..
"The M4 needs to be widened and extended to link up with City West Link and WestConnex is doing this," he said.
"Labor has ignored this challenge for 20 years. The government is simply doing what Labor couldn't do."
Mr Ayres said Labor did not believe WestConnex could be funded without tolls, which was why the opposition had not committed to removing them.
Like the rest of WestConnex, the distance-based tolls will rise each year at the rate of inflation or 4 per cent, whichever is greater.
At present, it means that tolls on the widened M4 will be rising at twice the rate of inflation and, in an era of low wage growth, resulting in a greater proportion of motorists' income being funnelled into paying for the right to drive on it.
Related Articles:
$120 a week and 'just sitting there': Jason's toll road nightmare .
$1 billion blowout in Westconnex gateway project .
<www.smh.com.au/nsw/new-m4-toll-funnels-more-motorists-onto-sydneys-parramatta-road-20170815-gxwaob.html>

Woman caught on video defecating on Melbourne bus. with tdu.
News Corp Australia Network August 15, 2017.
<www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/woman-caught-on-video-defecating-on-melbourne-bus/news-story/3735cf0492579153720d47e9cab242d0> 12 comments: mix of hostile and trivial.

August 16, 2017 Sydney Airport’s traffic hell is man-made incompetence we’re all paying for.
30/09/16 Sydney Airport Traffic Congestion on Friday morning from 7 am on the corner of Qantas drive and O'Riordan street Mascot. Adam Yip/ The Daily Telegraph
TRAFFIC gridlock around Sydney airport is a joke.
How many missed flights, how many billions of dollars in lost productivity, how much psychological stress, has this man-made incompetence caused?
Between 6.30am and 9am, seven days a week, traffic gridlock is adding 40 minutes to every airport trip. Hong Kong, Heathrow and New York’s JFK are dreams by comparison.
One veteran limo driver says he used to be able to manage three airport trips in a morning. Now he only has time for one.
A police car is now permanently stationed at the Marsh Street exit from the M5, where traffic is backed back up into the tunnel for several kilometres at peak times. Motorcycle cops are stationed at nearby intersections. They’re not there to help ease congestion, but to slap fines on drivers desperate not to miss their planes plane.
Don’t listen to the airport’s slick traffic managers try to tell you the reason you’re stuck in traffic for an extra 40 minutes is the temporary pain of infrastructure construction that will make future commutes a breeze. This gridlock predates those roadworks and will outlast them.
Don’t believe airport spin artists when they try to blame increased aircraft movements — the numbers don’t explain the exponential growth in airport traffic jams.
Any professional driver will tell you the truth. Sydney Airport is regularly branded the most gridlocked airport in the world because of greedy corporate managers who have fleeced us blind since the Howard government’s botched privatisation of 2002.
Last year, Sydney Airport made $100 million profit on car parking fees, a staggering 73 cents of profit on every dollar of revenue.
People unload luggage on the ramp to Sydney International Airport due to traffic jams getting to the terminal door. (Pic: News Corp)
Macquarie Bank bought the 99-year lease on the airport in 2002, reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in fees and dividends before they offloaded the monopoly to shareholders in late 2013, having bled it dry.
The multistorey carpark at the international terminal they built in 2012, just turbocharged traffic gridlock, along with a Rydges hotel. More passengers now drive themselves and park because it’s convenient. Yet fees are so exorbitant, at $18.50 for 30 minutes, that people picking up passengers circle the terminal multiple times to avoid paying.
Control freakery by airport management has only added to congestion, with short term fixes that infuriate drivers.
In an attempt to speed up drop offs, for instance, the airport has removed signs designating where each airline counter is located in the terminal. But all that does is create confusion, with no one knowing where to stop and drivers overshooting the terminal and having to loop back around.
Then there are the traffic cones the airport has laid down the middle of the approach road to the international terminal to stop vehicles crossing lanes in any kind of organic, efficient way. Instead, one side is now designated for traffic coming from suburbs in the north and east, with the other side for traffic from the south and west.
This forces one lane to drop off at one end of the terminal and the other to drop off at the far end, whether you like it or not. Blocking the kerb every 20 metres is some hapless traffic controller in a fluorescent orange vest whose role is to frantically move drivers on and make it as difficult as possible to disgorge passengers. It’s a zoo.
Sydney's ongoing traffic congestion getting to the airport doesn’t look to be getting any better. (Pic: News Corp)
One limousine driver describes the orange controllers as a “traffic hazard... You’re trying to get to the space behind them, and they don’t want you to stop. They want you to go to the other end of the terminal and circle the terminal again”.
Congestion is at least doubled by drivers forced to loop the terminal.
When gridlock gets too bad at the international terminal, the airport initiates a special overflow lane, so that if you are driving from the south or west you will be diverted downstairs to drop off your passengers outside the arrival hall where they face a 15-minute trek with luggage to the check-in counter. Good luck if they’re disabled. Most people head to the car park instead. Kaching.
The airport also has instituted express pickup points where you can wait 10 minutes for free. This is where Uber drivers hang out. Every 10 minutes, to avoid paying the toll, they loop the terminal. In peak times, an estimated 80-100 Uber drivers are circling the airport waiting for a pickup, adding to congestion.
It is utter madness. One solution would be to offer free parking a short distance away and free shuttle buses to the terminals.
Rod Sims, chairman of the ACCC, has been complaining for years about the airport’s monopoly.
“They’ve got market power and there’s not much we can do about it,” he said when he released his latest report in March.
The fact is that Sydney Airport does not care about the pain it inflicts on travellers because it knows they have no choice.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/rendezview/sydney-airports-traffic-hell-is-manmade-incompetence-were-all-paying-for/news-story/63dbe91ce81b714e27a783c4d2ea2214> 31 comments.

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