The new land will be outer fringe, and the only hope of transport will be bus feeding to nodes on existing lines upgraded, and with proper interchanges. Williams Landing was a design disaster, and all the megabillions aren't solving the need either.

-----Original Message-----
From: Roderick Smith [mailto:rodsmith@werple.net.au]
Sent: Sunday, 8 July 2018 8:55 AM
To: 'transportdownunder@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: Wed.4.7.18 daily digest

Link:
<www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/companies/google-allows-companies-to-read-gmail-users-inboxes-20180704-p4zpek.html>

Attached.

180703Tu Melbourne 'Age' - Stockholm Metro [just one of the 17 photographs with the article]

180704W Metro Twitter:
- Dandenong sausage sizzle.
- Oakleigh damage.

180704W Melbourne 'Age' - Ringwood station sunrise (Matt Fleay-Daly), plus an unidentified station.

180704W Melbourne 'Herald Sun':
- housing.
- letters.
- Flinders St & Elizabeth St food precinct.
- public-transport complaints.
- energy, Paris agreement. with tdu.

Roderick.

Wed.4.7.18 Metro Twitter.
Pakenham/Cranbourne lines: Grab a free hot drink or delicious yoghurt from our team at Dandenong station this morning.
5.21 Cranbourne/Pakenham lines: Delays up to 15 minutes (a motor vehicle accident damaging trackside equipment in the Oakleigh area). Trains will travel at lower than normal speed through the area of concern.
- 6.08 Work crews continue to repair/fix the damage. Delays are 5-15 minutes.
- 7.19 Still 5-15 minutes.
- 7.50 No matter how many level crossings you remove, stuff like this will always happen.
- 8.32 Delays are up to 15 minutes.
- 8.40 Bloody drivers. Maybe you should've elevated the entire line, to avoid them!
- 8.45 Delays are now up to 25 minutes.
- 9.02 You should have a mobile app pushing such notifications to passengers earlier so that we can arrange alternatives. Now I’m stuck in your train slower than walking. Shame on you.
- We do, <www.metrotrains.com.au/metronotify>. We have sent/updated app and website since 5.00.
- Good to know. I will use it whilst the app review is pretty low. Hope it works.
- 9.05 On top of the 45 minute delays for bustitution for anyone beyond Dandenong. Hope everyone has forgiving bosses!
- 9.10 Pretty weird signage at South Yarra for a "25 minute delay". Nothing between the (obviously very late) 8.48 and the 9.13, apparently running on time. Is everything ok in the control centre?
- 9.13 This is ridiculous. Come on! Every day, one issue or another. The people of South East have been very patient with Metro for the last 3 years. It's the worst satisfaction rated train line & you don't bother doing anything about it. Metro should not get the next contract for running it.
- 9.19 Hopefully one day we will have a service which runs without any issues for a couple of days continuously!
- 9.20 And it all tax payer funded, and we pay for tickets, prices going up every year, without fail...Guess it's Privatised...So profit driven business, Huh. Book on electronics 101, might help regarding signalling issues every day; it's not rocket science.
- 9.33 Imagine the loss of productivity across Melbourne over the last 3 years...All thanks to metro... Guess they don't care & only look at profits as they are overseas company. While they will claim everything from the taxpayer. This is seriously ridiculous.
- 9.36 What get up at 4am?
- 9.43 OMG, Sounds like a car smashed into a track is a Metro fault. Train still running but slow, rather all trains stop running? Far-out!
- 10.09 Delays are up to 15 minutes.
- 10.47 I think the morbid curiosity in us all makes us feel ever so slightly better getting to see what's causing the delays. Thanks for the pictures!
- 11.01 Delays are 5-10 minutes.
- 11.53 Minor delays and clearing.
- 16.34 Minor delays clearing after an earlier [unannounced] overhead power fault.
- 16.35 Where did the overhead power fault occur?
- 16.50 Ohhh god its deja vu.
- 17.31 I’m guessing this was my train; it had something go kapow, a big red flash, the carriage shake, lose power and not a single word from the driver even after sitting at Melbourne Central for ages.
9.39 Hurstbridge/South Morang lines: Minor delays (an earlier [unannounced] faulty train at Jolimont).
16.57 Alamein/Belgrave/Lilydale lines: Minor delays (a train fault at Camberwell).
- 17.12 clearing.
- 17.53 Why did the next Belgrave service go past us instead of simply picking us up?
- 18.06 It was probably an express.
- 18.10 Belgrave/Lilydale lines: Buses replace trains Blackburn - Ringwood (a person hit by a train). Buses have been ordered but may take over 90 minutes to arrive, consider alternate transport options.
- 18.19 Alternative transport listed here [link given].
- 18.26 How about the driver opening the doors so people can get off the train?
- 18.27 Emergency services are attending to the train involved. For your safety, and the safety of the emergency services on site, do not attempt to exit from the train and please listen for further instructions from your
train crew and/or emergency services. [how does having passengers alight affect the safety of emergency services?]
- 18.30 Passengers on the affected train, for your safety, and the safety of the emergency services on-site, do not attempt to exit from the train. [the standard management copout bleat].
- 18.33 11 buses have been ordered, but may take over 90min to arrive; additional buses are being sourced.
- 18.38 Wow glad I’m home now and not still on the train.
- 18.45 Kudos to the driver. Handling all of this very calmly considering the situation. Hope you look after him. As for others worried about getting off - stop being selfish and think carefully about the situation. It’s someone’s life. [what an irrelevant and useless response].
- 18.52 14 buses have been ordered and are moving into position. Additional buses are being sourced.
- 18.53 Passengers on the affected train, emergency services are in attendance. We will evacuate the train when it is deemed safe to do so by emergency services. [45 min after the delay 'We can't cope, we don't try, we don't care].
- 19.05 17 buses have been ordered, with six in operation. Additional buses are being sourced.
- 19.16 Oh dear. Very upsetting.
- 19.25 17 buses are in operation and buses are expected to be in operation until at least 9pm.
- 19.34 Overheard a loud lady on the phone at the bus stop, saying tthat it was disgusting that the already established buses weren’t picking everyone up. Then saying how someone “decided to just kill them selves” and that they “could have waited until I got home”. Everyone was looking at her.
- 20.10 17 buses are in operation and buses are expected to be in operation until at least 9pm.
- 20.26 17 buses are in operation and buses are expected to be in operation until at least 10pm.
- 21.02 Where’s the incident response team at Ringwood? Replacement buses are dropping people here with no eta of a train leaving for Lilydale or Belgrave.
- 20.32 Dear Metro, I was one of the deaf passengers on the affected train. Whilst I want to thank you guys for getting us off in an orderly fashion, I was affected/impacted by not knowing what was happening then. It would have
been helpful if essential information was displayed on the screens and the lights on the train kept on until all passengers got off. I could have used the opportunity to ask my fellow passengers to explain what was happening.. Please
think of us deaf/deaf blind passengers during an emergency situation. Thank you.
- 21.12 Services are now resuming, with minor delays. The first will be the 20.41 up Belgrave and the 20.35 down Lilydale.
- 21.40 And no forward going trains from Ringwood. Thanks Uber for getting me to Mooroolbark!
17.00 Pakenham/Cranbourne lines: Our mates from Clayton Rotary Club are throwing a few snags on the barbecue at Dandenong.
21.35 Frankston line: Major delays (police near Moorabbin).
- 22.03 Buses will replace trains Moorabbin - Frankston (police near Highett). Buses have been ordered but may take over 90 min to arrive. Consider alternate transport.
- 22.25 Services are now resuming, with major delays.
- 22.31 Do we get a refund for being stranded at 10pm with no transport to get home? Just took an uber from Caulfield to Mentone $30.

Melbourne Express, Wednesday, July 4, 2018
9.05 Works alerts on the Pakenham, Cranbourne and Werribee lines.
It's whale-watching season again. There's been a number of Southern Right Whale sightings across the southwest. DELWP has reported the first whale calf of the season at Portland and at Logans Beach in Warrnambool, one of the regular breeding whales, Odd Lips, has been spotted multiple times.
One for the grammar nerds this morning.
Wind gusts up to 74km/h were recorded at Melbourne Airport at 1.45am. They hit 70km/h at St Kilda at 6am and 67km/h at Essendon Airport at 3am. In Kilmore, gusts at to 91km/h have been recorded.
7.46:
• There's also a burst water main in Camberwell on Burke Road. South-bound left lanes are closed. Speed is down to 40km/h. Works are due to finish at 3.30pm.
• Delays up to 15 minutes still on the Cranbourne/Pakenham lines. Work crews are continuing to repair damage near Oakleigh caused by a motor vehicle smashing into trackside equipment.
7.02 Hot drinks at Dandenong station this morning.
6.47 Route 96 trams have resumed after an earlier disruption.
6.35:
• There are delays on the Ballarat line.
• Route 96 trams towards St Kilda Beach are diverting via Route 12 between Batman Park and Park Street (a tree across the tracks).
• Delays continue on the Cranbourne/Pakenham line after a car crashed into trackside equipment overnight.
5.57 Delays up to 15 minutes already on the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines after a motor vehicle accident damaged trackside equipment in the Oakleigh area. Trains will travel at lower than normal speed through the area of concern.
Matt Fleay-Daly This morning's stunning sunrise at Ringwood.
Everyone going mental for a sunrise again today. Essendon Air Traffic Control Tower.
<www.theage.com.au/melbourne-news/melbourne-express-wednesday-july-4-2018-20180704-p4zpbk.html>

Jul 3 2018 Ten beautiful metro train transport systems.
Most of the time, heading into a metro or subway system is an exercise in functionality – they're grim, murky places you need to enter to get from A to B relatively quickly. Some of the world's metros, however, aren't content to settle for this, and sprinkle a little fairy dust around to make them far more appealing.
* Stockholm, Sweden: Many of Stockholm's stations look like elaborately painted caves, and the Swedish capital's one giddily bills itself as the world's longest art exhibit, with 110km of tunnels. Almost all of the subway stations have sculptures, mosaics, paintings, reliefs and installations, with the Kungsträdgården station looking like an archaeological excavation. Meanwhile, Östermalmstorg is ablaze with women's rights- and environmentalist-themed art. Photo: Shutterstock.
* ATHENS, GREECE: When the Athens Metro was being built, the excavations uncovered all manner of historical treasures. And, instead of shunting off all the finds into museums, some were incorporated into the station designs. So Akropoli has 1500-year-old mosaic floors and 6th-century oil lamps, while Monastiriki's centuries-old ruins come with a long buried, forgotten-about stream trickling through. Photo: Alamy.
* LISBOA, PORTUGAL: Lisbon's stations have been used as a showcase for the country's beloved tile art ever since the metro system was built. The simple geometric patterns of the earlier stations have been complemented by rather more
extravagant efforts elsewhere. Cais Do Sodre goes in for a giant Alice In Wonderland-style rabbit, and Oriente is covered in works by artists brought in from five continents to do their thing. Photo: Shutterstock.
- Interior of Olaias metro station.
* PARIS, FRANCE: There are some treasures hidden inside the Paris Metro stations – Louvre-Rivoli has replicas of ancient art and statues from the Louvre Museum, for example. Photo: Alamy.
- But it's the old-fashioned art nouveau signage and entrances that make most of Paris's stations so swoony. Many of these were created by art nouveau movement heavyweight Hector Guimard, and have been imitated around the world.
* NAPLES, ITALY: Several stops along lines 1 and 6 in Naples have been designated as "art stations" and deliberately designed to look pretty. Of these, Toledo is the masterpiece, regularly cited as one of the world's most stunning metro stations. The blue-and-white mosaic tiling makes it look like a twinkling, starry sky, and riding up the escalator feels like ascending to the heavens.
- The Mayor authorised the best writers in the city to paint the metro bridge. Photo: Alamy .
* WASHINGTON DC, USA: Washington DC's startlingly brutalist stations carry a space-age look that was in vogue in the 1960s. Photo: Alamy. https://en..wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Union_Station
- The curving concrete tunnel roofs, made up of tessellated squares, are defined by their lack of decoration, but manage to be tremendously distinctive. They could be ugly – but instead look rather epic.
* CHICAGO, USA. Much of Chicago's L network isn't underground at all, and what makes it viscerally cool is that it rattles along on elevated tracks above the road. There's something rather steampunk about this, and the L trains have
featured in numerous movies. They're noisy as hell, but there's a romance about them that no other city manages to match.
* LONDON The strength of the world's oldest underground railway network is in its variety. There's plenty of detail to be uncovered, while stations have vastly different looks. Westminster, for example, looks rather like it should be on the Death Star in the Star Wars movies, but Baker Street has Sherlock Holmes silhouettes on its tiled walls and Leytonstone has mosaics commemorating Alfred Hitchcock. Many of the most gorgeous facades are the work of Leslie Green, who used colourful tile-work to elevate the likes of Mornington Crescent, Covent Garden and South Kensington above the humdrum.
- Baker Street station.
- Westminster Photo: Alamy .
* MOSKVA, RUSSIA. Moskva's extensive metro system involves lots of very deep stations that were partly designed as bomb shelters. They're a real hodge-podge too, some boasting laughably earnest Stalinist art, such as the mosaics of
happy workers at Kievskaya and the black marble and soldier sculptures at Ploshchad Revolutsii. Komsomolskaya is the most impressive though, painted to look like a yellow baroque palace, and with crystal chandeliers dangling from the
roof.
- Metro station Avtovo in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Photo: Alamy
* PHILADELPHIA, USA. The latter section of the Market-Frankford Line in Philadelphia also runs above ground and passes a series of 50 murals painted high on the walls of buildings. Collectively, these are known as the Love Letter, and are by artist Stephen Powers. All are fairly simple messages to an imagined object of affection, using images from what's nearby – bacon and eggs near a cafe, a camera near a photographic store, for example. Mural Arts runs tours
pointing the murals out on weekends. See muralarts.org
See also: Inside the world's most beautiful subway.
See also: World's fastest train and nine other bucket-list types of transport to try.
See also: The world's most beautiful local transport rides.
<www.traveller.com.au/the-top-10-metro-systems-in-the-world-h121sg>

Guy pledges to expand outer suburbs by thousands of homes, all at once 4 July 2018.
Planners say Matthew Guy's pledge to release almost 300,000 extra housing lot on Melbourne's fringe if he becomes premier in November could ratchet up the cost of new homes instead of making them cheaper.
And the Opposition Leader's move – designed to lower land prices – would also leave scores of new suburbs in outer Melbourne without adequate infrastructure, senior planners and their professional body said on Wednesday.
More paddocks will become homes under Matthew Guy's plan. Photo: Eddie Jim.
The warnings follow Mr Guy’s announcement that a Liberal state government would fast-track the rezoning of 11,000 hectares of farm land – about 290,000 extra housing lots – on Melbourne’s fringe.
He said this would help make more houses more affordable. The price of a housing lot in outer Melbourne had risen from $203,800 in 2014, when Labor won office, to $323,000 this year.
The average lot size had reduced over this time from 445 square metres to 400 square metres today.
Related Article Population growth becomes the big issue.
Mr Guy promised to complete all metropolitan Melbourne “precinct structure plans” – master plans, usually for tracts of land to be turned into housing estates – by mid-2020.
This would see thousands of new blocks rezoned and released to the housing market in the Melton, Wyndham, Hume, Whittlesea, Mitchell, Casey and Cardinia council areas.
Mr Guy stressed his plan would not require any change to Melbourne’s urban growth boundary. “All approvals are within the current growth boundary,” he said.
Mr Guy's promise to release 290,000 housing lots dwarfs the Andrews government's land supply "pipeline" of 100,000 blocks, which it is midway through delivering.
Mr Guy also said he would “introduce streamlined processes to slash unnecessary and unreasonable delays”.
One senior planner, Bill Forrest, was damning of the Opposition's plan saying it would worsen existing problems rather than solve housing affordability.
"The affordability problem is not a $500,000 McMansion on the fringe," he said. "It’s finding a three-bedroom detached house, however small and rundown, within 10 kilometres of the CBD for less than $1 million."
He said the most unnecessary delays to new housing were not in the planning process but in the provision of schools, trains, buses, police stations, health centres and arterial road duplications.
Mr Forrest, a former director at the outer urban Wyndham Council, and for many years chief executive of Nillumbik Shire Council, said releasing "two to three decades of land supply only spreads the problem wider".
"The state cannot service so many growth fronts – precinct structure plans are not infrastructure implementation plans and only collect 15 per cent of the funding required."
Laura Murray, president of the Planning Institute’s Victorian chapter said the opposition needed to urgently commit to significant funding for public transport, roads and infrastructure for Melbourne’s outer areas.
“There are already a number of lots currently waiting to be delivered that are on hold due to the delays in the required infrastructure to these areas,” she said.
And she warned that, were Mr Guy to fast track every metropolitan precinct plan in a bid to reel in land prices, the sudden rush in building would push up construction costs.
“We already know the demand for construction workers [such as] civil engineers is at capacity, and there is a shortage of town planners across the state to deliver these decisions,” Ms Murray said.
She said Mr Guy’s threat to fine councils and authorities if they did not work quickly enough could lead to bad planning decisions in the fast-tracked creation of new suburbs.
She said Mr Guy could more sensibly focus on encouraging construction of more homes in Melbourne’s middle suburbs rather than quickening outer-urban development.
“The middle ring areas," she said, "are close to existing infrastructure, jobs, services and public transport."
Oppositions planning spokesman David Davis, maintained that the fees developers are required to pay would cover the cost of an infrastructure rollout – despite this not having been achieved in many outer urban developments to date.
“We want to build communities with affordable housing and first-class amenities, services and infrastructure," he said.
Mr Wynne said Mr Guy's planning policy would leave people "abandoned in our growth corridors, without any of the basic infrastructure needed to support communities".
He said the rezonings proposed by Mr Guy would give "windfall profits to developers but deliver nothing for new home buyers".
The government pointed out that Victoria had approved 74,000 new dwellings in the last 12 months – up from just 50,000 when Mr Guy was planning minister.
The former chief executive of the Victorian Planning Authority, Peter Seamer, said the amount of new land being put on the market by outer urban developers had slowed down as block prices had simultaneously gone up.
He said Planning Minister Richard Wynne had put in processes that had meant a much more orderly progression of projects were being put on the market. "That’s a good thing. But it’s slowed things down," he said..
<www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/guy-pledges-to-expand-outer-suburbs-by-thousands-of-homes-all-at-once-20180704-p4zphw.html>

Victorian state election 2018: Opposition leader Matthew Guy announces his first moves on housing affordability Jul 4, 2018.
Matthew Guy will fast-track the release of 290,000 plots of land. Photo: AAP.
Almost 300,000 plots of land in Melbourne’s fringe areas will be released under a Liberal plan to tackle housing affordability if it wins November’s state election.
Opposition leader Matthew Guy has also promised to financially penalise authorities that are causing unreasonable delays in the delivery of greenfield land estates, in an announcement that has been described as “music to the development industry’s ears”.
Despite spending years repeatedly criticising the trajectory of Melbourne’s population growth, Mr Guy announced plans to fast-track the release of 290,000 residential lots in the western, northern and south-eastern growth corridors by mid-2020.
Properties can take longer to sell if too many vendors are competing for a limited buyer pool. Photo: iStock
The opposition leader said greater land supply would drive price competition in the land market. It follows premier Daniel Andrews’ 2017 pledge to release 100,000 residential lots by the end of this year.
Mr Guy said the new lots would all be within the city’s urban growth boundary, which was expanded in 2012.
If the Coalition wins the election, it will also establish a new dispute resolution process at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in a bid to cut times and costs involved in planning applications and title timeframes.
The site for the new suburb, Mount Atkinson, is 23 kilometres from the city.. Photo: Chris Hopkins
The announcement on Wednesday, the first part of a five-point plan to address housing affordability, was welcomed by developer groups.
The Urban Development Institute of Australia has long blamed planning inefficiencies in Victoria’s greenfield market for driving up prices. The median lot price surged more than 30 per cent in the year to March, according to a recent
report.
The institute’s chief executive Danni Addison said Mr Guy’s plan to streamline processes “will be music to the development industry’s ears”.
Matthew Guy defended approving apartment towers in Fisherman’s Bend as part of an urban renewal program. Photo: Joe Armao
“Melbourne’s greenfield suburbs are incredibly desirable to homeowners, but the median lot price is rapidly increasing simply because new lots cannot be produced fast enough,” she said.
Developers have also criticised under-resourced council planning departments, and other authorities such as sewerage, water and power companies, for ballooning title timeframes.
Mr Guy attended a developers forum in the CBD on Tuesday night with top planning lawyer John Cicero, principal at Best Hooper, who criticised the current planning system for expecting municipal councils to manage unprecedented levels of population growth.
“It seems to me that until and unless the state government deals with the issue of leaving it to 17 disparate councils to manage the change, to manage the growth that is happening in Melbourne, we’re not going to get very far,” Mr
Cicero said.
Speaking to the crowd of more than 100 developers, architects and property investors, Mr Guy said his vision involved bringing more supply onto the market to stabilise property prices.
“Why do people hate supply being brought into the market? Supply that should be there to put a downward pressure on price so that people can own a home, so that people can own an apartment.”
Mr Guy, whose term as planning minister was marked by the ready approval of some of the city’s biggest developments, also said he would review mandatory plot ratios in the CBD, which limit the total floor area of a development depending on its plot size.
“Under the current ratio, the Rialto wouldn’t have been built. Nauru House wouldn’t have been built. The Eureka Tower wouldn’t have been built,” Mr Guy said.
“So it’s ridiculous that you now have plot ratios in place that would have prohibited some of the most prominent buildings in the CBD being built.”
Mr Guy last month announced plans to revive zoning rules that make it harder to build medium-density housing on established streets.
The move that was welcomed by councils in the leafy inner east but criticised by the Planning Institute of Victoria.
<www.domain.com.au/news/victorian-state-election-2018-opposition-leader-matthew-guy-announces-his-first-moves-on-housing-affordability-20180704-h127ws-750783>

Think you can get to work quicker in the school holidays? You can't. 4 July 2018.
If you think driving to work will be quicker during the school holidays, think again.
Data collected by the Grattan Institute shows that most trips to Melbourne's CBD are at best marginally faster when the kids are on holidays.
There's no relief in sight. Photo: Justin McManus
The think-tank based their analysis on Google Maps' car trip time estimates from all corners of Melbourne.
The traffic data was collected 25 times a day (including the morning peak period), over six months last year.
It measured the average time it took to drive on main thoroughfares from 22 suburbs to Melbourne's CBD on a typical weekday and then during school holidays.
The data does not capture traffic changes on roads surrounding schools, which would certainly be different when they are shut.
The data includes the Easter and June/July school holidays, but it excludes the end-of-year summer break, when traffic eases considerably.
But the recorded routes, from areas including Doncaster, Footscray, Brighton, Sunshine West and Coburg, provide a snapshot of the city, revealing that average weekday travel times are much the same when compared with average school
holiday travel times.
For instance, it takes about 44 minutes to travel from Caroline Springs to the city, during both school and non-school periods.
It takes about 23 minutes to travel from Footscray under both scenarios, 48 minutes from Hoppers Crossing, 18 minutes from Port Melbourne and 35 minutes from Sunshine West.
However, Sunbury commuters save four minutes on their journey to the city during school holidays, with their travel time dropping from 47 minutes to 43 minutes.
Drivers in Heidelberg in Melbourne’s north-east are saving four minutes on their trip to the CBD.
And commuters from Oakleigh South and Moonee Ponds save about two minutes during the holidays.
A Victorian auditor-general previously found that trips to and from school, particularly in the mornings, was a significant contributor to road congestion, with about one-fifth of Melburnians travelling at 8.30am on weekday mornings.
The 2013 report suggested that changing school commuting patterns could reduce travel volumes by around 5 to 10 per cent.
But Marion Terrill, who leads transport program at the Grattan Institute, said the idea of staggering school times has long been bandied about as a congestion-busting solutions, but evidence showed that this was a “red herring”.
"We found no evidence to support this idea. It’s not going to help. If we were to stagger school starting times, this wouldn’t make a noticeable difference to congestion except in a local way," Ms Terrill said..
Related Article How do you find out how bad Melbourne's traffic really is?
"It's simply because when you look at the city as a whole, the impact of traffic associated with school drop offs, on average, is not very great. It can be seen on a localised sense, so right outside the school, but when you look at the city as a whole, it's a very small impact."
A major Age data analysis last week revealed that peak hour was spiralling out to three hours, and Victorians added an extra nine minutes to travel times on key freeways between 2014 and 2016, despite millions being spent on widening
freeways.
Congestion is becoming a key issue in this year’s state election, with the Andrews government vowing to build the West Gate Tunnel and the North East Link, and the Coalition promising to build both roads, in addition to the dumped East West Link.
The two parties have not committed to a congestion charge in Victoria, which Ms Terrill said would help ease the traffic pain, along with raising the price of CBD parking to match Sydney’s prices and discounting off-peak public
transport trips.
Melbourne University’s professor of urban transport and public health, Mark Stevenson, said a congestion charge could disadvantage lower income earners, and said more on-demand shared transport options servicing growth areas would help in managing local school traffic.
“Just building more infrastructure is not the solution,” Mr Stevenson said.
“We need to take into account the changing transport system, we need to look at land-use allocation and how much land is being released on the fringes of Melbourne and what kind of transport access we need to provide in relation to
those developments.”
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/think-you-can-get-to-work-quicker-in-the-school-holidays-you-can-t-20180704-p4zpdd.html>
'Very little of what Tony Abbott says is helpful': Coalition anger boils over on energy policy 4 July 2018. 91 comments.
A damaging split has intensified in the Coalition over energy policy as MPs rail against Malcolm Turnbull's signature National Energy Guarantee, prompting complaints about an "incredibly frustrating" level of leaking and disunity.
Former prime minister Tony Abbott set the stage for the outbreak with a speech calling for Australia to abandon the Paris climate agreement he signed up to as prime minister, while outspoken Nationals MP George Christensen joined Mr

Abbott in threatening to cross the floor and vote against the NEG. open access.
<www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/very-little-of-what-tony-abbott-says-is-helpful-coalition-anger-boils-over-on-energy-policy-20180704-p4zpi4.html>

Andrew Bolt: Forget Paris Agreement, this deal is folly. Paywalled; this is with tdu.
Herald Sun July 4, 2018.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/andrew-bolt/andrew-bolt-forget-paris-agreement-this-deal-is-folly/news-story/d788e6e6c16d258b9e7e845a42557daf>

Victorian state election 2018: Opposition leader Matthew Guy announces his first moves on housing affordability Jul 4, 2018.
Matthew Guy will fast-track the release of 290,000 plots of land. Photo: AAP.
Almost 300,000 plots of land in Melbourne’s fringe areas will be released under a Liberal plan to tackle housing affordability if it wins November’s state election.
Opposition leader Matthew Guy has also promised to financially penalise authorities that are causing unreasonable delays in the delivery of greenfield land estates, in an announcement that has been described as “music to the development industry’s ears”.
Despite spending years repeatedly criticising the trajectory of Melbourne’s population growth, Mr Guy announced plans to fast-track the release of 290,000 residential lots in the western, northern and south-eastern growth corridors by mid 2020.
Properties can take longer to sell if too many vendors are competing for a limited buyer pool. Photo: iStock
The opposition leader said greater land supply would drive price competition in the land market. It follows premier Daniel Andrews’ 2017 pledge to release 100,000 residential lots by the end of this year.
Mr Guy said the new lots would all be within the city’s urban growth boundary, which was expanded in 2012.
If the Coalition wins the election, it will also establish a new dispute resolution process at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in a bid to cut times and costs involved in planning applications and title timeframes.
The site for the new suburb, Mount Atkinson, is 23 kilometres from the city.. Photo: Chris Hopkins
The announcement on Wednesday, the first part of a five-point plan to address housing affordability, was welcomed by developer groups.
The Urban Development Institute of Australia has long blamed planning inefficiencies in Victoria’s greenfield market for driving up prices. The median lot price surged more than 30 per cent in the year to March, according to a recent
report.
The institute’s chief executive Danni Addison said Mr Guy’s plan to streamline processes “will be music to the development industry’s ears”.
Matthew Guy defended approving apartment towers in Fisherman’s Bend as part of an urban renewal program. Photo: Joe Armao
“Melbourne’s greenfield suburbs are incredibly desirable to homeowners, but the median lot price is rapidly increasing simply because new lots cannot be produced fast enough,” she said.
Developers have also criticised under-resourced council planning departments, and other authorities such as sewerage, water and power companies, for ballooning title timeframes.
Mr Guy attended a developers forum in the CBD on Tuesday night with top planning lawyer John Cicero, principal at Best Hooper, who criticised the current planning system for expecting municipal councils to manage unprecedented levels of population growth.
“It seems to me that until and unless the state government deals with the issue of leaving it to 17 disparate councils to manage the change, to manage the growth that is happening in Melbourne, we’re not going to get very far,” Mr
Cicero said.
Speaking to the crowd of more than 100 developers, architects and property investors, Mr Guy said his vision involved bringing more supply onto the market to stabilise property prices.
“Why do people hate supply being brought into the market? Supply that should be there to put a downward pressure on price so that people can own a home, so that people can own an apartment.”
Mr Guy, whose term as planning minister was marked by the ready approval of some of the city’s biggest developments, also said he would review mandatory plot ratios in the CBD, which limit the total floor area of a development depending on its plot size.
“Under the current ratio, the Rialto wouldn’t have been built. Nauru House wouldn’t have been built. The Eureka Tower wouldn’t have been built,” Mr Guy said.
“So it’s ridiculous that you now have plot ratios in place that would have prohibited some of the most prominent buildings in the CBD being built.”
Mr Guy last month announced plans to revive zoning rules that make it harder to build medium-density housing on established streets.
The move that was welcomed by councils in the leafy inner east but criticised by the Planning Institute of Victoria.
<www.domain.com.au/news/victorian-state-election-2018-opposition-leader-matthew-guy-announces-his-first-moves-on-housing-affordability-20180704-h127ws-750783/?utm_campaign=featured-masthead&utm_source=the-age&utm_medium=link>