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From: Roderick Smith [mailto:rodsmith@werple.net.au]
Sent: Friday, 28 July 2017 12:37 PM
To: 'transportdownunder@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: snippets, Fri.28.7.17

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170728F Melbourne 'Age' - South Yarra proposals.

Roderick.

Fri.28.7 Metro Twitter
5.16 Buses replacing trains b/w Hurstbridge - Eltham (a track fault near
Wattle Glen).
8.35 Inbound route 19/57/59 trams are terminating at Stop 5, Melbourne
Central (a tram fault).
- 8.35, through to Flinders St again.

Melbourne Express: Friday, July 28, 2017 .
Ever wanted to tour a sewerage plant? Well this weekend you can!
Open House Melbourne is on again tomorrow and Sunday, taking in the city's
weird and the wonderful.
From synagogues to substations, and yes, even a sewerage plant, there's
something for everyone.
Read about Age reporter Carolyn Webb's tour of Melbourne's second-biggest
sewerage plant here.
Full list of Open House Melbourne buildings here.
David Norman, manager, eastern treatment plant. The Eastern treatment plant
is offering public tours as apart of the Open House Melbourne program.
Photo: Joe Armao .
Any smokers reading? Your next cigarette with your pub lunch might cost you
$777.
Victoria will have new laws banning smoking in all outdoor dining areas from
August 1, and the fines for flouting the rules are not cheap.
There are some weird quirks, however. Packaged chips are allowed, but hot
chips and sandwiches are out.
Bryony Fitzgerald, Manager of The Last Jar (Irish pub) with smoker in the
beer garden. Smoking will be banned in all eating areas from 1st of August.
Photo: Joe Armao, Fairfax Media.
<www.theage.com.au/victoria/melbourne-express-friday-june-28-2017-20170727-g
xkdvw.html>

Extreme commuting: Taking two hours or more to get to work Jul 24, 2017 .
More and more Americans are enduring extreme commuting as property prices
push people further out from the cities. Photo: Glenn Hunt.
In 1492, after an arduous voyage aboard Columbus’s vessel the Santa María,
Rodrigo de Triana, a lookout, bellowed, “Tierra!”
This is pretty much how Corey Ferrell, a commuter, sometimes feels upon
docking at his Manhattan office following a heroic three-and-a-half-hour,
one-way commute — by bicycle, two trains, and on foot — from Oxford,
Connecticut.
About 180 miles to the west, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Scott Ubert, a
corporate chef in Manhattan, starts his extended day at 5am. An hour later,
coffee in hand, he drives 10 minutes to an open-air bus stop where he
catches the 6:20 to the Port Authority Bus Terminal — two hours if the stars
align. From there, he has a leg-stretching 20-minute walk to work.
The United States Census Bureau defines “long commutes” as 96 kilometres
each way. Photo: Quentin Jones.
“The ride is pretty comfortable,” Mr. Ubert said. “But just hope you don’t
get one of the old clunkers.” Like nearly all “extreme commuters” — defined
here as people who commute a minimum of two hours each way, five days a week
— Mr Ubert settles in, pulls out his iPhone and laptop and gets to work
answering emails, texting and planning menus. He typically logs a 10 to
12-hour workday, returning home at close to midnight.
“My wife always waits up, which is nice,” Mr Ubert said. “Our little guy
goes to bed at 9pm, which is not so cool, but he loves the backyard and
neighbourhood, so it’s completely worth it.”
At first Mr Ubert thought he would hate the commuting life, but that soon
changed. “It’s really not so bad, and what we get in return is amazing.”
What they get in return is a 288 square metre, five-bedroom, four-bath
colonial on one rustic acre, for which they paid $375,000 last year.
“It’s true, we are living the American dream, with deer running around in
our yard, and bald eagles, too.”
It would be an overstatement to say extreme commuting is a major trend.
After all, how many people can withstand 200 hours a month travelling back
and forth?
For those who can, however, the motivations are similar: the need to leave
an unaffordable city, expanding families, a search for better schools,
tranquil environs and more real estate bang for the buck. And as employers
become more open to flexible work hours, combined with technology that makes
it easier to carry the office with you, the long-distance commute is
expected to grow significantly.
“Technological changes have made it more possible to redefine the
workplace,” said Mitchell L. Moss, director of the Rudin Center for
Transportation at N.Y.U. “Even in New York City, which has been famous for
not allowing people to work at home, there is now more tolerance of flexible
time.”
There is little data on long-distance commuting. The United States Census
Bureau defines “long commutes” as 96 kilometres each way, which is hardly
breaking a sweat for today’s morning marathoners. In 2013, 21 percent of
commuters spent 60 minutes or longer getting to work, half of those driving
alone. New York State had the highest rate of long commuters, about 16
percent, followed by Maryland and New Jersey, at roughly 15 percent.
“We are now getting more middle and upper-level executives with young
families looking for prime waterfront property,” said Meig Walz of Coldwell
Banker in Madison, Connecticut, which is about 15 minutes east of New Haven
and halfway between New York and Boston. Four and five-bedroom waterfront
homes in Madison are in the $2 million range, half of what they would fetch
in Fairfield County, and with lower taxes.
Observing this lifestyle, one might ask, what character traits dispose one
to engage in a weekday ordeal of near allegorical sacrifice?
For one, virtually all possess a sense of resigned equanimity when
discussing their routines. No one complained. (Well, one groused about the
removal of beer carts from the platform entrances in Grand Central.) And
they appeared to have resolved, in a selfless and resolute way, the urban
breadwinner’s equation that weighs time, motion, family, career and
environmental serenity. (Add sanity to the checklist.)
They hold good jobs, but not so good that they would put up with anything to
hold them. They are family focused, yet appear unburdened by any guilt about
seeing their children mostly when they are unconscious.
“We do a lot of stuff on weekends,” Mr Ubert said.
Mr Ferrell, in Connecticut, an electrical engineer, has had an extreme
commute for eight years. He considers the train an adjunct to his office,
with a “hot spot” internet connection and adequate space to spread out
papers.
His children are grown and out of the house. This, he said, frees up
weekends so he and his wife can … take the train to Manhattan.
“I love the city,” he said. “We do it all the time.”
New York Times
<www.domain.com.au/news/extreme-commuting-taking-two-hours-or-more-to-get-to
-work-20170724-gxhoma/?benref=theage>

Oil rises to highest level since May. with tdu.
Reuters Fri.28.7.17.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/business/breaking-news/oil-rises-to-highest-level-sinc
e-may/news-story/0bf915a1f6188d8f758103e4147cf811>

July 28 2017 Developer and political donor Bill McNee makes South Yarra rail
project pitch .
Developer Bill McNee, the political donor at the centre of a scandal
involving an aircraft given to Pauline Hanson, is embarking on a new
headache: trying to build over railway lines in Melbourne.
The proposal by developer Bill McNee for Toorak Road, South Yarra, opposite
the existing railway station there. Photo: Bruce Henderson Architects
Mr McNee, a major donor to the Liberal Party during Matthew Guy's time as
planning minister, is relying on the goodwill of the Andrews government to
help build a $25 million project over tracks next to South Yarra railway
station.
The project would see a three-level office and retail centre built above
train tracks on Toorak Road, directly opposite South Yarra station.
An artist's impression of a park plan floated by Stonnington Council last
year as part of the Metro Tunnel planning inquiry. Photo: Stonnington
Council
Construction of the project, on land owned by VicTrack, would lie directly
in the path of the proposed $11 billion Metro Tunnel rail extension. It sits
near the proposed location for the South Yarra underground station
Stonnington Council has been lobbying for.
VicTrack owns both the land the rail tracks sit on, and the air rights above
them. VicTrack has given its support to the project.
The office building would not preclude later construction of an extra
railway station. Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan is opposed to a new
station there as part of the Metro Tunnel project, because of what would be
high construction costs for an area already well serviced by heavy rail and
trams.
Plans were lodged with Stonnington Council last week.
Mr McNee and the architects and planners involved in the project have met
with Stonnington councillors, VicTrack, Yarra Trams, the Metro Tunnel
authority and Planning Minister Richard Wynne's office.
The proposed building would include 1000 square metres of office space, 1000
square metres of retail space, and a public plaza of almost 1000 square
metres.
Pauline Hanson's One Nation party has been accused of buying this private
plane with funds from Mr McNee without officially declaring it as a gift.
Photo: Andrew Darby
The project would provide a new thoroughfare from Toorak Road to a park
known as the South Yarra Siding Reserve.
But it is at odds with a plan floated by Stonnington Council at hearings
last year into the impacts of the state government's proposed Metro Tunnel,
which surfaces in South Yarra near the site.
An Australian Electoral Commission official in May told a Senates estimates
hearing that it had launched an investigation into the ownership of the
plane used by One Nation during the 2016 federal election campaign.
The investigation came after the ABC's Four Corners uncovered evidence the
plane had been bought for One Nation by Mr McNee, but never properly
declared.
graph.
While Mr McNee owns the company proposing the South Yarra plan, a director
and spokesman for the group is architect Bruce Henderson.
He has owned his offices, which are opposite the site, since 1982.
"The crowds back then would be one person crossing at the traffic lights. If
I look out my window now there are 60 people trying to cross Toorak Road
right now," Mr Henderson said on Thursday.
"This project would give people who use Toorak Road a park off the main
street that they could easily get to," he said.
Melbourne has a long and tortured history of building above railway lines,
with few proposals moving forward to construction. The most infamous was the
decade-long battle by a developer to build a tower above rail lines at
Camberwell railway station.
Stonnington Council chief executive Warren Roberts said it wanted to
increase its open space, and "if a proposal was appropriate, [we] would
consider the land above railways as an opportunity for this".
But he said because the project had only just been submitted to the council
it would not be appropriate to comment until the application was considered..
<www.theage.com.au/victoria/developer-and-political-donor-bill-mcnee-makes-s
outh-yarra-rail-project-pitch-20170727-gxk1il.html>

Victorian roads more congested as 500,000 extra vehicles hit the roads in
five years.
Herald Sun July 27, 2017.
•Melbourne traffic congestion on par with world’s biggest cities
•Motorists could spend extra hour commuting to work by 2030
•Victoria’s most annoying driving habits revealed
NO wonder our city feels like one giant traffic jam.
Shock new figures reveal 500,000 more vehicles have hit Victoria’s roads in
the past five years. And three-and four-car families in outer suburbs are
fuelling the boom.
Vehicle registrations have soared 11.5 per cent to 4.7 million since 2011,
while the state’s population has risen 10 per cent, to about six million.
And the number of kilometres travelled on Melbourne freeways and arterial
roads each year now tops 29 billion, up from 27.6 billion.
Shock new figures reveal 500,000 more vehicles have hit Victoria’s roads in
the past five years. Picture: Nicole Garmston
Census figures show the city’s outer southeast boasts most cars per
household. Casey, which includes Cranbourne and Narre Warren, has almost
8000 dwellings with at least four vehicles, 14,000 three-car homes, and
40,000-plus two-car homes.
Other four-plus vehicle hotspots include Yarra Ranges (5601 homes), Hume
(5025), Greater Geelong (4873) and Whittlesea (4580).
Pearcedale’s Luke Bennett lives in a house with five people and five
vehicles.
“It’s quite painful. We’re always doing shuffles,” he said.
Mr Bennett said: “I’m always telling my stepsister not to park behind me,
because I’ve got to get out at stupid hours in the morning.”
Pearcedale’s Luke Bennett lives in a house with five people and five
vehicles.
Melbourne inner suburbs, flush with tens of thousands of apartments and good
public transport links, have the lowest car ownership levels.
The City of Melbourne had 28,140 dwellings recording no vehicles, and 21,703
households with just one car. Moreland, which includes Coburg and Brunswick,
had 8415 homes with no vehicles. Port Phillip had 8182, Yarra 7649,
Stonnington 7470 and Darebin 7167.
Across Victoria, 8 per cent of dwellings had no vehicles; a third had one
vehicle; 37 per cent had two; and 18 per cent at least three, the Australian
Bureau of Statistics’ latest census found.
RACV public policy manager Brian Negus said the high ownership rates in
outer suburbs reflected population growth and a reliance on cars.
“We have a public transport system that’s very radially focused, except for
the SmartBus system,” he said.
“We’ve still got a situation where something like 80 per cent of people use
a vehicle to get to work. It’s extremely important we continue with a strong
push to improve both roads and public transport.”
RACV public policy manager Brian Negus. Picture: Brendan Francis
Mr Negus said people buying in growth areas faced a dilemma: house prices
were cheaper than in more established areas, but transport costs were high
owing to a lack of public transport.
“It’s especially important for bus services to get people to train stations
… to try and avoid having to buy the second car or third car,” he said.
VicRoads says as of June 30, Victoria had 3.7 million light passenger
vehicles, 724,000 goods-carrying vehicles, 160,975 heavy vehicles and
191,404 motorbikes. It has about 150,000km of roads for general traffic and
50,000km more of minor roads and tracks in parks and forests. Vic­Roads
manages 23,000km of freeways and arterials.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/victorian-roads-more-congested-as-500000
-extra-vehicles-hit-the-roads-in-five-years/news-story/4e64821b4562cd5a567d9
d95f8ff3dd0> with 88 comments.