-----Original Message-----
From: Roderick Smith [mailto:rodsmith@werple.net.au]
Sent: Saturday, 16 June 2018 11:34 PM
To: 'transportdownunder@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: Sun.10.6.18 daily digest

Attached [almost nothing today].

180610Su Melbourne 'Herald Sun':
- letters.
- energy, gas. at flickr

<www.flickr.com/photos/13175590@N00> (for 7 days, search on tag
'workaround').

Roderick.

Sun.10.6.18 Metro Twitter [that was all, other than the interminable planned
bustitution notices].
21.50 Sandringham line: Minor Delays due to trespassers near Prahran.
- 21.56 are trains moving now? I've been stuck on a train near Prahran for
10 min, and am supposed to start work at 10.
- 22.04 Trains have just started moving through the area, but with major
delays.

The rise of the mega-commuter 10 June 2018 117 comments.
It's still completely dark when Dan Lysaght gets the train to work. Photo:
Max Mason-Hubers Dan Lysaght commutes six hours a day several days a week,
from north of Newcastle to the Sydney CBD.
Until recently the 35-year-old marketing executive and his wife Melissa, a
childcare worker, rented in Ryde. Earlier this year, the couple moved back
to the Newcastle area, where they both grew up, with their two-year-old son
Roman.
The couple's plan is to get the best of both worlds: the city salary for
Lysaght who works in marketing at a bank, and the relative affordability of
Newcastle.
"The number one thing is family ... it's a chance to reconnect with family
and friends, to let Roman get to know his grandparents, aunties and uncles,"
Lysaght says.
"The second thing is affordability because what we can buy in Newcastle in
terms of size and space is more than what we could get in Sydney. Having
grown up with it, I felt it was important for my family to have the backyard
and access to the outdoors and the beach."
Right now the Lysaghts are staying with Melissa's parents in Maitland, but
the couple is keen to buy a place as soon as possible. They've got finance
sorted and they're actively looking for a three-bedroom house with a
backyard, close to the train line, where they can grow their family.
The trade-off is Lysaght's alarm goes off at 4.30am and he drives to the
station for a 6am train, arriving at his office near Wynyard by 8.40am. He
doesn't get home until after 8pm, often calling in by FaceTime to say good
night to his son. While it's early days, he believes he's "starting to get
into the routine".
Dan and Melissa Lysaght want two-year-old Roman and any future children to
grow up near family and with a backyard and access to the beach. Photo:
Simone De Peak His work has offered some flexibility and his plan is to work
from home two days a week, though in recent busy periods he's only managed
one.
Lysaght is not alone. Terry Rawnsley, an economist with consultancy SGS
Economics and Planning says the trend of long commutes is increasing.
"There has been growth in what I would call the 'mega-commuter' - those who
commute a long distance to get to the CBD," Rawnsley says.
"It's a trend that is becoming more common. What's happened is that
sometimes these people might only work in the office a couple of days a week
and budget on travelling for 10 hours a week and are happy to do that so
long as they are not doing that five days a week."
video: Commuting from Wyndham Vale to Clayton. Victoria Rogan lives with her
family near Werribee, but studies Japanese and Marketing at Monash
University in Clayton. Unable to afford to move closer, this is her commute.

Rawnsley says that is particularly the case with those who work in
professional occupations, where higher incomes make the longer commute
worthwhile.
Job centres
Figures from the 2016 Census show the extent to which the growth engine for
jobs is in the big cities.
The flexibility to work from home two days a week makes it easier for Dan
Lysaght to keep a Sydney salary despite living in Newcastle. Photo: Simone
De Peak The census showed more than 900,000 jobs were created in five state
capitals - Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth - between 2011
and 2016.
But the rest of Australia saw a net increase of only 5400 jobs in that
period.
The median household income in greater Sydney is $91,000 compared to $60,736
for NSW overall, while in greater Melbourne it's $80,184 versus $58,448 for
Victoria as a whole.
Yet property prices in Sydney and Melbourne are out of reach for many
people, particularly those with growing families looking for a house with a
decent back yard.
A median-priced three-bedroom house in greater Sydney costs $772,000,
according to Domain data analysed by comparison site RateCity. Assuming you
have a 20 per cent deposit and are repaying principal and interest over 30
years, you'd need household income of $125,172 a year to avoid mortgage
stress, at the current average big bank rate of 4.5 per cent.
Mortgage stress is defined as spending more than 30 per cent of your pre-tax
income on mortgage repayments.
Banks are meant to stress-test the borrower's capacity to make repayments of
a higher rate, currently about 7.25 per cent. To service the loan on a
$772,000 home at that rate, you'd need household income of $168,525 a year
in order to avoid mortgage stress.
In greater Melbourne, to buy the median-priced three-bedroom house of
$690,000 and avoid mortgage stress you'd need household income of $111,876 a
year if paying 4.5 per cent - or $150,625 if rates rose to 7.25 per cent.
By comparison, it currently takes a household income of $59,667 to be able
to afford the three-bedroom median house price of $368,000 in Bendigo, while
in North Gosford, to the north of Sydney, it takes an income of $90,312 to
be able to afford a loan for the typical $557,000 home.
The median big city prices are for the whole metropolitan area, including
outer suburbs that might entail a mega-commute of their own. Established
areas close to the city with good transport are more expensive - for
example, in Melbourne the median three-bedroom home in is $956,000 in
Chadstone or $1.45 million in Richmond, while in Sydney the median
three-bedroom home is $2.12 million in Chatswood or $2.16 million in
Strathfield. So-called entry-level homes in established areas are often
still close to a million dollars.
Upgraders. It is not only first-timers who find it impossible to break into
a capital city property market, but even upgraders who have built up some
equity can find it tough going.
Alicia Kelly says the commute from the Macedon Ranges to Melbourne is worth
it. Photo: Supplied Alicia Kelly, 37, drops her three kids off at school and
then drives for more than an hour to her job as a television producer in
Melbourne's Southbank precinct.
Kelly and her husband moved with their three children from Melbourne to
Gisborne in the Macedon Ranges, about 55 kilometres north-west of Melbourne,
to have more space for their children.
The family includes a 9-year-old boy and 7-year-old twins, a boy and a girl.
Her husband runs his own business and travels, including frequent travelling
interstate. They get a lot of help from Kelly's parents, who live nearby,
and often pick the children up from school.
Alicia makes the drive into Melbourne four days a week and usually waits
until after 6.30pm to head home, to avoid traffic. There is a rail link, but
Kelly says trains don't always stop at Gisborne and it's less stressful to
drive.
"I love my job and I love where we live and what we are able to provide for
our children," Kelly says. "When I take that exit off the highway on the way
home I just think how much I love it here."
They owned a house in Melbourne but there was not much of a backyard, Kelly
says. They wanted more space for their growing family.
"The most affordable thing for us was to sell up and move further out to be
closer to my parents and also to be able to have a better lifestyle for our
family," she says.
Her family lives in a free-standing house on a "leafy and beautiful"
quarter-acre block.
The costs of petrol and the toll she pays from Tullamarine to Flemington
Road and parking of $12, is worth it, she says.
Congestion increases. The congestion in Australia's two biggest cities is
getting worse as infrastructure fails to keep pace with their booming growth
in population.
Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show Melbourne had the largest
population growth of 125,400 during the year to June 30, 2017, followed by
Sydney with 101,600 and Brisbane with 48,000. Together, the three cities
accounted for more than 70 per cent of Australia's population growth.
Rawnsley says that Melbourne has been better than Sydney at improving the
rail services between regional centres and the capital city CBD.
With many people facing very long commute times across Sydney or Melbourne,
living outside of the city can sometimes not add much to the travel time, he
says.
Commuting from somewhere like Ballarat, for example, is quite doable. And
the trains are fairly frequent in peak periods, he says.
"That can be more appealing than a 'greenfield' growth area in Melbourne,
for example, where you have to drive yourself around in heavy traffic,"
Rawnsley says.
"The trip from Newcastle to Sydney by train, on the other hand, which is
still more than two-and-a-half hours, is no quicker than it was decades
ago."
City commuters. While anyone coming into the CBD from regional centres is
going have a long commute, most of the people who do long commutes are those
who travel across Sydney or Melbourne.
Emma Shipley lives in Caringbah South in the Sutherland Shire of Sydney and
she takes the 50 minute train trip into the CBD each weekday. She has to
drive for 15 minutes to the station.
While she gets a seat on the way in, she sometimes has to stand for the
first part of the journey on the return journey.
Shipley, 23, who works in public relations, has moved back with her parents
in Caringbah South in order to save a deposit for an apartment close to
work, which she hopes to buy in a couple of years' time.
She used to drive the 28km into the CBD with a friend to share the petrol
and parking costs.
"But it was just too stressful; the traffic on the Eastern Distributor was
horrific and I could spend 45 minutes in the car not moving, so I gave up on
that," Shipley says.
She is looking forward to getting her own place so that she does not have to
travel two-and-a-half hours each day.
Related Article: 'I feel like a different person': moving from the city to
the regions.
<www.theage.com.au/money/planning-and-budgeting/the-rise-of-the-mega-commute
r-20180607-p4zk06.html>

Eight extra trains an hour for some Sydney stations 10 June 2018.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian at Sutherland station on Sunday. Photo: James
Alcock.
Sydneysiders are being promised more train services during peak hours under
an $880 million plan to upgrade the network's old signalling technology -
but not for a few years, at least.
Commuters in the city's south and along the airport line are set to benefit
first from the investment, to be allocated over four years in next week's
state budget.
The changes will allow five extra trains an hour during peak on the
Illawarra line from Cronulla, plus eight more services per hour at the
international, domestic, Mascot and Green Square stations.
The new digital signalling and train control systems will be rolled out in
stages, but they won't start coming online until the early 2020s.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian labelled it a "significant investment".
"We understand how important it is for people to be able to move around
freely, to be able to get to work on time, and to spend less time
travelling," she told reporters on Sunday.
Sydney Trains boss Howard Collins said the technology has been used in many
other countries and will help deal with the huge growth in traveller
numbers.
"This technology has been proven but it will take some time," he told
reporters.
"This will reduce our costs, improve reliability and more importantly
improve capacity for our whole network."
<www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/eight-extra-trains-an-hour-for-some-sydney-stat
ions-20180610-p4zkm9.html>

Plan to generate electricity from household waste gathers fresh steam 10
June 2018.
<www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/plan-to-generate-electricity-f
rom-household-waste-gathers-fresh-steam-20180610-p4zklv.html>