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Subject: Tues.20.10.20 daily digest

Roderick

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Tues.20.10.20 Metro Twitter
Werribee Street, Werribee closes between the Princes Highway and Cottrell Street until 7am, while crews install new bridge structures over the road. Bus routes 153, 443 and 443 will be detoured.
Buses replace trains on sections of the Upfield line until the last train of Sun 15 Nov (level-crossing works at Coburg and Moreland).
Both southbound lanes will be closed on South Gippsland Hwy, Dandenong South, between Princes Hwy and Fowler Rd, until 5.00 (level-crossing work).  Detour via Frankston-Dandenong Road and Dandenong Bypass.
9.32 Pakenham line: Major delays (a motor vehicle blocking tracks near Hallam). Trains may be altered or cancelled.
- 9.56 Major delays clearing.
- 10.52 Minor delays clearing.
Buses replace trains Newport - Werribee/Williamstown from 20.00 until the last train (works).
Buses replace trains Heidelberg - Hurstbridge from 20.15 until the last train (works).
Buses replace trains Dandenong - Pakenham from 20.30 until the last train (works).
Buses replace trains Epping - Mernda from 20.50 until the last train (works).

Pakenham/Cranbourne lines: Buses replace trains (major works): Flinders St-Caulfield until the last train of Tue 23 Apr; Dandenong - Pakenham/Cranbourne from 20.00 until the last train tonight.
- Where can I get the timetable for the Cranbourne shuttle to Dandenong? I couldn't find it anywhere on a brochure or your website.
- The altered timetable is at http://bit.ly/2WPeCnD .  Or, you can use the PTV journey planner.
- Instead of more services they decide to terminate a full Glen Waverley train at Richmond this morning without cause, so we can squeeze on to other trains that are already full.
- The 7.40 ex Glen Waverley was withdrawn from service after an incident rendered the train unsafe to carry passengers. Whilst every consideration is made to ensure a train can run it's full journey.
- Any chance of more services on the Glen Waverley line to accommodate the massive increase in passengers?
- Any chance of more services on the Glen Waverley line to accommodate the extra passengers? Trains were full by Gardiner at 7.30 this morning.
- Adding to commuter woes, no trains from Caulfield to Pakenham since 16.30.
- No free coffee or snacks for passengers affected by the works?
- Are you running buses from Darling to Oakleigh?
- 17.47 Who is the incompetent architect of this mess? Three buses just passed South Yarra taking fewer than 10 passengers, 26 min and waiting still can't get one.
- There are no replacement buses for the Pakenham line from Darling.
Frankston/Stony Point lines: Buses replace trains (major works): Flinders St - Caulfield and Frankston - Stony Point until the last train of Tue 23 Apr; further changes will apply during this time.
- Why did the bus go down the freeway and take nearly two hours to get to Caulfield? What is wrong with turning left into Flinders and left into Swanston. Was the biggest traffic jam going right.
- Can the Caulfield express bus from back of Fed Sq not go down St Kilda rd / up Dandenong Rd? This route down the Monash makes no sense.  It took 1 and 3/4 hours last night just to get to Caulfield alone, and its looking the same
tonight.
Sandringham line: Trains will run to an altered weekday timetable while work on the Pakenham/Cranbourne/Frankston lines take place. Download a copy here: http://bit.ly/2Kbii1E
- What a mess this is! 45 min to get on a train home. 4 at parliament and 3 at Richmond. Not to mention all the space in the middle of the aisles people seem to be scared of.
16.57 Pakenham/Cranbourne lines: Minor delays Caulfield - Dandenong (an equipment fault near Westall).
- This has to be a joke, You are now going to delay us even more? What kind of system is this? You are the gift that keeps on giving.
Last month, we fell short of our punctuality targets which means eligible customers (holders of a myki pass of 28 days or longer duration) can claim compensation [if they jump through lots of hoops].

Melbourne Express, Tuesday, April 9, 2019
8.57 Most people seem say the commute has run more smoothly this morning.
"The city end still looks like a mess going into Fed Square though...with no protestors to blame this time?" Public Transport Users Spokesperson Daniel Bowen said.
But commuter Caitlin Dowling‏ has taken to Twitter to say the public is "being too kind to Metro".  "TrainPain is when the news and radio are saying it took three hours to get into the city yesterday when from Narre Warren it took 4.5 hours. It took three hours to get home that night. Y’all are being too kind to Metro. Driving in today though and it’s taken two hours," she said.
Buses at Caulfield station on Monday morning. Credit: Simon Schluter
Reader Alana Jakstas says the Train Pain "is a little bit of short-term pain for long-term gain" and gives "two thumbs up for Metro".  [Brainwashed; the pain isn't short term; there is no long-term gain].  "I might sound cocky and I hope I’m not talking too soon, but it has only taken me an extra 30 minutes each way to get into the city and home again to Edithvale," she says.  "I’m lucky enough to be able to start work early and finish early – I was on a train just before 6am which also means that I’m not paying for the trip into the city each morning either.  "Getting home earlier also means that I can hit the gym before all the 9 to 5ers flood the gym and I’m tucked up at home, eating dinner just in time for Neighbours."
The queue at Caulfield station was moving quickly about 7.30am. Credit: Rebecca Hallas
The Train Pain apprently isn't too painful at Caulfield at the moment, according to our photographer Rebecca Hallas, with plenty of replacement buses at the ready and the queue moving quickly.
A commuter I quoted earlier, who hopped on a replacement bus at 6.45, doesn't seem to be having a great trip into the city this morning.
Another commuter has taken to Twitter to describe his express replacement bus trip out of the city last night, which took three times as long.
"Another 1 hour journey taking 3 hours on the Express from Fed Sq to Caulfield on Monday evening. Pakenham  train terminating at Westall added to frustration".
7.12 Here's a view from a commuter taking one of 600 replacement buses this morning.
"When you leave early because of bus replacements and the 6.02 says 5 min to depart and it’s currently 6.09," one tweeted.  She didn't get on a bus at Caulfield until 6.45, and got onto Dandy Road to head into the city at 6.59. "Mind you this is the EXPRESS service.  "Meanwhile on a fancy replacement bus last night, we moved about 3mins closer to Caulfield Station every 10mins in peak hour! Total duration was 65min."
There is more of the same TrainPain this morning, with the Cranbourne, Pakenham, Frankston and Gippsland Metro lines all down again.
Yarra Trams has reminded commuters the construction blitz will put more pressure on the tram network
Let me know how your commute is going and send pics torachel.eddie@... or on Twitter.
Bicycle Network organised a commuter race yesterday morningto test whether cycling would be faster than taking replacement buses during the #TrainPain construction blitz. It took one commuter two hours and 49 minutes to travel from Oakleigh station to Flinders Street station, while bike riders took less than an hour.
Two people cycled the journey in 47 minutes. One person rode to East Malvern station, locked their bike up and caught the train the rest of the journey, taking 48 minutes. Another person caught a train to Caulfield and a replacement bus to the city, and took two hours and 49 minutes.
Here are all the details of today's #TrainPain, which has the same Metro closures as yesterday.
Vegan activists shut down the city yesterday morning and caused extended commuter delays in the morning peak - if #TrainPain wasn't enough.
We sent our intern Susan Telai to Cornish Arms pub on Sydney Road in Brunswick, with half its menu being vegan, to see what they thought about the disruption yesterday.
Mary Thao, 23, a non-vegan bartender from Caulfield told intern Susan Telai the protests that shut down the city yesterday did not achieve anything.
Here's another view from a non-vegan punter at The Cornish Arms in Brunswick, who spoke to our intern Susan Telai yesterday about the protests yesterday morning.
Helen Knox, 47, from Footscray, was the only non-vegan Susan spoke to who supported the protest.
"I think everyone forgets that people are allowed to protest about the things they care about," she said.
"The only way they could get their point across was by making a statement and their protests today did just that."
Here are some vegans at Cornish Arms in Brunswick responding to the protests yesterday morning that shut down one of Melbourne's busiest intersections.
Angelica Cho, 23, a vegan bartender from Flemington, told our intern Susan Telai the action didn't hurt anybody.
"I think they were justified in their protests, they weren't hurting anyone," she said.
Simone Dennis, a 21-year-old waitress from Moonee Ponds, said: "The point of a protest is to make sure people know what you're standing for and these protesters made sure that their voices were heard loud and clear."
Commuters at Caulfield Station on Monday morning.Credit:Simon Schluter
We have another day of TrainPain this morning, with the Cranbourne, Pakenham, Frankston and Gippsland Metro lines all down again today.
Yesterday morning, we had readers saying they waited for a replacement bus at Caulfield Station for 45 minutes.
Let's see if they've smoothed out those issues today.
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-express-tuesday-april-9-2019-20190408-p51bwd.html>

Coal plant grant funded before key report finalised or published Mike Foley October 20, 2020. 76 comments
<www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/coal-plant-grant-funded-before-key-report-finalised-or-published-20201020-p566z0.html>

Brisbane Metro budget blowout costs ratepayers $64 million. Lucy Stone October 20, 2020
Delays to Brisbane Metro have cost ratepayers $64 million, as the council blames the state government's slow processes for stalling a project that has already blown its budget by $300 million.
The project hit a wall in June last year, when lord mayor Adrian Schrinner came out swinging against the state government, blaming it for additional costs and delays.
The Brisbane Metro increased in cost from $944 million to $1.2 billion earlier this year.CREDIT:BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL
But it was all smiles by June this year, when a peace deal was reached that removed the sticky topic of the $1.2 billion transport project's centrepiece station — a proposal to put all buses and metro vehicles underground at the Cultural Centre in South Brisbane.
With the council and state agreeing to postpone the planned underground station in favour of smaller changes to the existing above-ground station at the south end of the Victoria Bridge, progress was suddenly back on the table.
But on Tuesday, the council's public and active transport committee heard the year-long delay had cost the council $64 million, and will likely cost more.
"We've been project-ready for about a year, so we've had about a year's delay," Brisbane Metro project director Stephen Hammer told councillors.
"That's extra people, extra time, design effort, tender costs, all those types of things.
"... That has required, in particular, quite a financial burden on construction companies for the cost of disposing of waste."
The council and state have now signed several agreements to begin work, requiring a "collaborative process" to design the Cultural Centre station, and the council to install shade structures on Victoria Bridge. A park at 125 Grey Street, next to the train station, will also be installed under the agreement.
South Brisbane residents will also have free tolls on the Go Between Bridge during construction.
The council will also be required to develop more strategies to manage fare evasion. The metro vehicles are expected to have all-door boarding with tap-on card readers, which Mr Hammer said "potentially" created an increased risk of fare evasion.
"We are also required to reimburse the cost of [Transport and Main Roads'] interactions with Brisbane City Council as part of delivering the project," he said.
"So a cost reimbursement will be put in place for that, and an agreed process for network planning and service changes, which is quite a significant part of the project."
Public transport committee chairman Ryan Murphy told Brisbane Times the "onerous" state-imposed condition required the council to reimburse the wages of TMR employees working with the Metro project.
A full figure for those employee costs is not yet available, but the new requirements from TMR will need to go before the council again in the future for approval.
Cr Murphy also questioned the timing of the state government's sign-off on the Metro approvals, days before election caretaker mode began.
Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said the Metro project covered a "significant portion of inner Brisbane, so getting the design of public spaces around it right is critical too".
"Many of the changes requested by the state were to reinstate elements at King George Square, Buranda and Griffith University stations," he said.
"These elements were cut out of the Metro plans by Brisbane City Council in 2020 when they proposed to delay undergrounding of the Cultural Centre station.
"These elements needed to be reinstated to stop the busway clogging up when the longer metro vehicles go into service."
Mr Bailey said the council was "warned" not to go to tender in 2019 without the state's approvals, but those issues had been resolved.
In the committee, opposition leader Jared Cassidy asked how much of the final transport network would be underground as originally proposed.
Mr Hammer said the Adelaide Street tunnel would bring about 300 metres of underground travel to Metro, while about 200 metres of planned underground tunnel at the Cultural Centre would not go ahead.
Cr Murphy suggested the Brisbane Metro project was never specifically about putting buses underground, but rather about "addressing a strategic transport infrastructure concern".
RELATED ARTICLE Victoria Bridge will be converted to a green bridge as part of the Brisbane Metro project. Shade structures on Brisbane's Victoria Bridge under council investigation
<www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/brisbane-metro-budget-blowout-costs-ratepayers-64-million-20201020-p566tr.html>
* LNP Adrian Schrinner doing his usual of pointing the finger to blame instead of taking accountability. I'd say the pandemic halted things.
* Hopefully the new buses will be better maintained than the council's ferrys.
* A Labor state govt putting red tape in the way of a project to score political points down the line? No, I'd never believe it! Probably the unions not happy about the prospect of driverless vehicles.... The Unions and Labor - holding Australia back since the 19th century
* Never mind the whole project is a complete and utter waste of precious financial resources. A State LNP idea, no matter how stupid, significantly funded by the Federal LNP Government of course. Whereas a far more useful and needed project in the Cross Rover Rail is ridiculed and ignored by the Feds because it wasn't an LNP idea. You want to talk about political point scoring? Open both eyes!

Big builds which have changed Melbourne’s skyline in past 30 years
Peter Rolfe October 20, 2020 Herald Sun
...Southern Cross Station: The Former Spencer St railway station opened in 1859 but underwent a major revamp from 2002-06 that added retail spaces and notably a wave-shaped roof. Planning Minister Richard Wynne said it was “a massive feat of engineering and architecture to actually get it up and it’s been a terrific asset for the city.’’ Extra platforms were added in 2010....
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/big-builds-that-have-changed-melbournes-skyline-in-past-30-years/news-story/c1e2612fdfe69f7f5ed8854618c6815d>