Fw: Mon.11.1.21 daily digest
  Roderick Smith


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Roderick

"210111M-'SMH'-metro.tunnel-ss.jpg"  The main reason for building a 'metro': photo opportunities.

Mon.11.1.21 Metro Twitter
Bridge Road tram-track renewal works, 11pm Sunday 3 January to 5am Saturday 16 January.
Craigieburn line: Glenroy level-crossing-removal works. Glenroy Rd closed at the level crossing to 28 Feb. Detours via Gaffney Street and Camp Road. Buses replace trains on sections of the line until 22.00 on Sat 16 Jan.
10.10 Buses replace trains Frankston - Stony Point (a train fault), adding extra travel time.
- Trains resuming . First trains: 12.30 ex Frankston; 13.44 ex Stony Point.
12.18 Major delays (police near Pakenham). Trains may terminate/originate at intermediate stations 'to alleviate congestion'.
- 12.34. 13.00 & 13.56  Police now at Hallam too.
- Police finally convincing netz_melb off the tracks?
16.33  Lilydale/Belgrave/Alamein/Glen Waverley lines: Major delays (an equipment fault near Richmond). Trains will run direct Flinders Street to Richmond.
- 16.39 Passengers at Flagstaff, Melbourne Central & Parliament; board any train from platform 2 to Richmond. Passengers at Southern Cross, board any train from platform 11 to Flinders Street.
- 16.59 Trains have begun to resume via the City Loop. [either they have or they haven't]
- I haven’t missed this. God help us when we go back into the office.
Werribee/Williamstown lines: Buses replace trains North Melbourne - Newport/Williamstown from 20.30 until the last train (maintenance works).
18.37 Sunbury/Craigieburn/Upfield lines: Delays (a train fault at Flinders Street). Trains may run direct to North Melbourne.
- 18.55 Delays clearing; trains have 'begun to resume' via the loop.
Pakenham/Cranbourne lines: All trains direct to/from Flinders St from 21.00 until the last train (maintenance works).  From Southern Cross or loop stations, take any Burnley-group train to Richmond.


Coronavirus as it happened: Greater Brisbane lockdown to end, mask mandate to continue; NSW records three new local COVID-19 cases Marissa Calligeros January 11, 2021.
* 14.52 NSW Health issues new alerts for shops, bus routes in Campsie, Hurlstone Park, Lakemba, Ashfield. Georgina Mitchell.  Train:
Wednesday 6 January, 10.58am – 11.20am, Hurlstone Park to Bankstown
Wednesday 6 January, 1.49pm – 2.08pm, Bankstown to Hurlstone Park
Friday 8 January, 10.53am – 11.20am, Hurlstone Park to Bankstown
Friday 8 January, 2.37pm – 3.08pm, Bankstown to Hurlstone Park
* 10.16 Brisbane's new mandatory mask rules
- Masks must be worn indoors at places including shopping centres, hospitals, churches, supermarkets, cinemas, ride-shares and public transport.
- Masks must be worn at work if you cannot socially distance.
- Masks must be carried on person at all times.
- Masks are not needed while exercising outdoors, or in a private vehicle.
<www.theage.com.au/national/coronavirus-updates-live-nsw-premier-gladys-berejiklian-opens-new-front-in-covid-19-borders-wars-20210111-p56t2c.html>

Passengers escape before bus destroyed by fire at Glebe. Georgina Mitchell January 11, 2021
<www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/passengers-escape-before-bus-destroyed-by-fire-at-glebe-20210111-p56tav.html>


COVID-19 lockdowns help speed up Sydney Metro delivery. Tom Rabe January 11, 2021
The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have helped increase the pace of construction on Sydney’s multibillion-dollar City and Southwest Metro rail project.
With tunnelling completed last March and station construction running ahead of schedule, Transport Minister Andrew Constance said less traffic on Sydney’s roads during COVID-19 lockdowns had helped speed up construction.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Transport Minister Andrew Constance help lay the first tracks on the Metro City and Southwest project.CREDIT:LOUIE DOUVIS
“COVID of course throws up some challenges but it also provides, particularly in construction, some opportunities and we’ve been able to get ahead in some instances in our projects,” he said.
“Truck movements across town, because of less congestion on the roads, we're able to move more quickly.”
The 30-kilometre line from Chatswood to Bankstown is expected to cost close to $17 billion, after the Herald revealed last year a multibillion-dollar blowout on the project.
While visiting the Metro tunnel on Monday deep below Chatswood to mark the first tracks being laid on the project, Mr Constance refused to confirm a final cost.
“A project of this scale, built over quite literally seven to eight years, is going to go through various stages, both in terms of the market,” he said.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Transport Minister Andrew Constance inspect construction work on the Metro City and Southwest project.CREDIT:LOUIE DOUVIS
“This project, over that sort of time period, is always going to be exposed to any escalations that might happen in a marketplace.”
Asked whether the government would consider opening sections of the metro earlier than 2024, Mr Constance said: “Anything that can be done to advance the project we’re going to look at.”
He added that trains for the metro would likely be commissioned in 2023.
The City and Southwest line connects to the existing Metro Northwest at Chatswood and burrows deep below Sydney Harbour, and through the CBD before emerging at Sydenham, where it will continue on to Bankstown.
Rather than tunnelling from Sydenham to Bankstown, the government will instead convert the existing rail line, with contracts for that work awarded last month. Upgrades to Marrickville, Canterbury and Lakemba stations are slated to begin in the first half of 2021.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the $100-plus billion infrastructure pipeline was “roaring ahead,” despite the pandemic.
“While our state is dealing with the challenges of the COVID pandemic, that it’s not stopping our infrastructure pipeline, in fact pleasingly this project is slightly ahead of schedule,” she said.
“Metro forms a key part of the government’s record $107 billion infrastructure pipeline, which will be a major jobs creator during our COVID-19 recovery.”
With 120 trains moving into the CBD during peak hour, Mr Constance said the Metro would increase it to 200.
“This project is going to shock everybody in terms of its impact,” he said. “It’s the biggest public transport project in the nation’s history.”
New stations will be built at Crows Nest, Victoria Cross, Barangaroo, Martin Place, Pitt Street and Waterloo, along with new underground platforms at Central Station.
RELATED ARTICLE Abdalah El Sayed and engineer Jaime Cheuk walk down the Sydney metro tunnel.  A walk beneath Sydney Harbour: meet the Metro tunnellers
<www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/covid-19-lockdowns-help-speed-up-sydney-metro-delivery-20210111-p56tac.html>


The end of the road for vehicles on Victoria Bridge. Lucy Stone JANUARY 11, 2021
Buses will still run across the Victoria Bridge.CREDIT:HARRISON SARAGOSSI
A key Brisbane bridge linking the CBD to South Brisbane will close permanently to general car traffic on January 24 to make way for Brisbane Metro buses, cyclists and pedestrians.
Victoria Bridge is one of the city's oldest bridges, and the closure to vehicles will be the latest development in the long saga of the Brisbane River crossing point.
The first bridge in the location was announced by Brisbane council in 1861 to connect the rapidly growing city centre with its southern suburbs.
Since the first timber bridge was agreed upon and built – not without controversy – numerous structures have straddled the river at the same location, leading to the existing bridge, built in the 1960s.
In the 1860s, two bridges were built: one was a temporary timber bridge designed to act as a scaffold for the larger, iron bridge planned for the same location.
Horse drawn carraiges and pedestrians at the northern approach of the first permanent Victoria Bridge, ca 1885.CREDIT:STATE LIBRARY OF QUEENSLAND
But the project ran into problems, not least of which was the temporary wooden bridge being so weakened by shipworm, it eventually collapsed and was washed away.
Political back-and-forth was a constant through the building of both bridges, as the state government wanted little to do with it and the town council first ran out of money, after the Bank of Queensland collapse, and then demanded the government take responsibility.
Eventually the first permanent bridge, owned by the council, was opened in 1874 with much fanfare – but it only lasted 19 years before being washed away in the floods of 1893.
A report by the Telegraph detailed the terrible impact the 1893 floods, which spanned days following multiple cyclones, had on the fledgling Brisbane.
Crowd gathered on the north bank of the Brisbane River, observing the floodwaters which washed away the Victoria Bridge, 1893CREDIT:STATE LIBRARY OF QUEENSLAND
Entire houses, sheds, boats and livestock were swept down the river, colliding with the bridge for hours as a crowd watched, before the structure finally gave way under the torrential water pressure.
"So continuous and terrible was the crashing of houses on Saturday night that many persons living near the bridge found it impossible to sleep ... no one can say with any certainty that some of them were not occupied by human beings, who were thus hurled to eternity without the power to make the slightest effort to save themselves," the Telegraph wrote at the time.
The Indooroopilly Bridge was also washed away in the 1893 flood.
The front page of the Telegraph on February 8, 1893, when the Victoria Bridge washed away.CREDIT:TROVE - NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA
Yet another temporary bridge was destroyed by flood a few years later. Finally, a bridge built in 1897 survived until the 1960s, when the existing bridge was built and the old demolished.
In the 1950s Brisbane City Council decided to replace the 1897 bridge, as it could not hold up to the demands of heavy modern traffic, with restrictions placed on the weight and type of vehicles that could use it.
Brisbane Telegraph in July 1953 described the planned replacement bridge as a "monster structure" with six lanes for traffic, two each way for vehicles and one each way for trams – those lanes are now used for buses.
But while most of the old bridge is gone, elements remain, after it was decided to retain the stone abutment on the South Brisbane side of the bridge, now a key tourist site on the walk across the bridge.
Members of the Greek community in Brisbane at a wreath-laying ceremony on Anzac Day at Victoria Bridge, ca. 1936.CREDIT:STATE LIBRARY OF QUEENSLAND
The abutment is also home to a memorial plaque to a young Greek-Australian boy, who was killed by a swerving car in 1918 at a parade to welcome home Australian soldiers.
Over the decades, Victoria Bridge has seen numerous protests, events, and the ever-present conversation about congestion, traffic and the future of Brisbane's road network.
A climate strike in 2019 saw more than 30,000 people march across the bridge, while a Black Lives Matter rally in 2020 saw protesters shut down the bridge.
A Black Lives Matter rally in June 2020 spilled from the CBD across Victoria Bridge.CREDIT:NINE
In 2011, Brisbane City Council touted the idea of a second bridge crossing close to the Victoria Bridge, dubbed the "Adelaide Street Bridge".
It was suggested such a bridge would be a "green" bridge taking hundreds of buses off the Victoria Bridge every day.
That proposal was gradually morphed into the Brisbane Metro, the council's $1.2 billion public transport project announced in 2016.
The closure of the Victoria Bridge to general traffic was first flagged in 2016 and the final date for its closure announced in November 2020 by the council.
Once the Victoria Bridge closes on January 24, there will be no direct vehicle access from Brisbane's CBD to South Brisbane – the first time in more than 50 years.
Brisbane City Council's $1.2 billion Metro project aims to reduce congestion and increase public transport speed and access.CREDIT:BRISBANE CITY COUNCIL
Instead commuters will be encouraged to take the William Jolly Bridge from Milton, or the toll Go Between Bridge, or the Captain Cook bridge southward.
Residents in the South Brisbane, West End and Highgate Hill suburbs will be given an annual $100 rebate for tolls during Brisbane Metro construction.
* That was an interesting history, but you missed including a photo of the 1897 bridge carrying electric trams (for most of its life), and trolleybuses (for about half of its life). That would have fitted the history better than yet another propaganda photo of the misnamed busway.
* So the Bridge has 4 full lanes so two lanes for the buses and two will be wasted on 1 cyclist every 12 minutes. That is one super clever Government.
* More of the ongoing push by Brisbane City Council to limit cars in the CBD. Its great if your of an age fit to cycle to work, or if public transport is viable for you, but for many those are not options. And try hauling a big shop on the buses or a bike.
* Bizarre town planning. The Council has turned South Brisbane and West End into densely populated inner city urban centres, and now shuts off the main access?
* Hardly a 'main' access. I avoid driving on Victoria bridge at all cost. The green light only last 10 seconds before another 2 minutes of red. Probably only carrying 10 cars per minute. Taking the William Jolly Bridge and go back to city centre is much faster almost every single time.
* The council should make the go between free to cross for vehicles.
* In the "artists impressions" scenes that seem to accompany every new project why is there never anyone in the crowd depicted as over the age of 40? I take it that middle aged and elderly people are no longer welcome in the CBD?
* Interesting observation. I hadn't noticed but you're right.
* And all white, no wheel chairs, mobility scooters or guide dogs in sight.
<www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/the-end-of-the-road-for-private-vehicles-on-victoria-bridge-20201229-p56qp9.html>

He created the web, now he wants to make it secure as he originally intended Steve Lohr January 11, 2021
<www.watoday.com.au/world/europe/he-created-the-web-now-he-wants-to-make-it-secure-as-he-originally-intended-20210111-p56t6a.html>


Trump's de-platforming could reshape the internet. Stephen Bartholomeusz January 11, 2021. 3 comments
<www.watoday.com.au/business/companies/trump-s-de-platforming-could-reshape-the-internet-20210111-p56t5p.html>

Mon.11.1.21 Melbourne 'Herald Sun' Letters:

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