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Subject: Sat.22.5.21 daily digest

Roderick

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Sat.22.5.21 Metro Twitter
Aircraft: No ramp access to platforms until late 2021 (pedestrian-underpass works).
Flinders St: still with a lane closed for tunnel works.
Pakenham/Cranbourne lines: Buses replace trains city - Caulfield until the last train of Sun 23 May (maintenance works).
Buses replace trains North Melbourne - Newport/Williamstown until the last train of Sun 23 May (works).
Heading to SupanovaExpo today? The best way is by train from Southern Cross to the Showgrounds. Trains depart every 20min from 9.40 to 18.30.
14.46 Mernda Line: Major delays (a level-crossing equipment fault at Bell).
- 15.11 Now minor.
16.05 Major delays (a power-supply fault affecting signalling between Diamond Creek & Hurstbridge).
- 16.42 clearing.  trains may terminate/originate at Eltham.
16.57 Lilydale/Belgrave lines: Major delays (an 'operational incident' near Camberwell). Trains will be held at platforms.
- 17.19 clearing.
20.27 Sandringham line: Major delays (police near South Yarra).
- 21.40 clearing.

Saturday traffic jams return: Weekend congestion worse than pre-pandemic levels Tom Rabe and Nigel Gladstone May 22, 2021
Saturday traffic in Sydney is as bad as it’s ever been, with recent weekend volumes returning to, or even exceeding, pre-coronavirus levels across the city.
An extra 230,000 traffic movements were recorded on average on Sydney’s roads between 11am and 12pm on Saturdays in April and May compared to 2019, new Transport for NSW data provided to the Herald shows.
Midday is the busiest hour for traffic on weekends, with more than 7.7 million car movements recorded across the city, and has worsened post-COVID on some of the city’s busiest roads.
Traffic on Parramatta Road increased between 11am and 2pm by more than 10 per cent on Saturdays compared to 2019 figures, while Military Road was up 3 per cent between 11am and midday.
Traffic last year dropped by close to 20 per cent at midday and 50 per cent at 8am as coronavirus lockdowns and restrictions forced people off the roads.
Transport Minister Andrew Constance said the new data, which was drawn from 2900 traffic light intersections across the city, was evidence the pandemic would likely not have a long-term impact on the way Sydneysiders moved around the city.
“The reality is the pandemic is not going to last forever,” Mr Constance said.
April peak hour traffic along Military Road in Mosman.CREDIT:BROOK MITCHELL
“Ultimately as we see more and more people get vaccinated, even the public transport system will return to pre-COVID patronage levels.”
Weekday traffic at 8am is worse across the city than it was during April and May in 2019 as more than 100,000 extra vehicles move across Sydney.
The data is based on traffic movements across the city’s intersections, not individual vehicles. However, Parramatta Rd and Military Rd corridors were analysed separately by taking vehicle observations at multiple intersections along the corridor to give precise vehicle numbers.
The increases were not evenly spread as some corridors saw fewer vehicles than 2019, such as the Pacific Highway between Lane Cove and North Sydney and Parramatta Rd near Camperdown to Broadway.
The worst morning peak hour increase in a sample of roads provided to the Herald showed Military Rd traffic spiked by close to 10 per cent on some weekdays compared to the same period in 2019.
Public transport patronage remained more than 30 per cent below pre-COVID levels over the same period.
Mr Constance said the growing traffic movements are evidence that the Berejiklian government should press ahead with its multi-billion dollar transport infrastructure construction pipeline.
Questions were raised during the pandemic as to whether the state government should push ahead with expensive infrastructure projects given the impact COVID-19 may have on the country’s population growth and transport trends.
“It’s a slap in the face to anyone being a pessimist,” Mr Constance said.
“This will be an infrastructure led recovery and in 10 years time when everything is back to normal and the country is growing, we’ve got to be doing this now.”
University of Technology Sydney transport expert Mathew Hounsell said the resurgence on the city’s roads may soon ease up as congestion grows and commuters look for other options.
“Traffic is like a gas, people will fill the system until it becomes too annoying to drive. Basically only when people feel the traffic is too heavy, will they start to move back to public transport,” he said.
Peakhour traffic in Western Sydney.CREDIT:COLE BENNETTS
“We will see more people choose public transport because it’s the easier option due to the high levels of traffic. I don’t know if it will return to pre-COVID levels until the vaccine rolls out. It’s a perception issue.”
Tolling giant Transurban recorded increases on its M4 and M5 West Motorways for the 2021 March quarter compared to 2019, while the Eastern Distributor and Lane Cove Tunnel are still down.
RELATED ARTICLE Graphic representing public transport dropping since the pandemic - Steven Siewert Road traffic almost back to pre-COVID levels as commuters shun public transport
<www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/saturday-traffic-jams-return-weekend-congestion-worse-than-pre-pandemic-levels-20210521-p57u2y.html>

Letters. MAY 22 2021
* The future of transport is here and it is called the bicycle. Two years ago last Sunday the ACT declared a climate emergency. In the Assembly debate Shane Rattenbury quoted Greta Thunberg: "We must start today. We have no more excuses."
We have reached 100 per cent renewable electricity. So far so good. The next biggest challenge - transport - is far more difficult. It means most people will soon have to change how they get around.
The government is pushing ahead with light rail. That will not be enough, or happen soon enough. We will also need a bus network offering fast, direct services so often that we don't need a timetable. Yet public transport demand has plummeted because of infection fears and working from home.
The government is then pinning its hopes on zero-emission cars - the line of least political resistance in Australia's car capital. But it will take too long and not solve the many problems of car dependency.
Which brings us to the humble bicycle; the cheapest, most efficient vehicle ever devised. About 40 per cent of car commutes are under 10 kilometres. Many more people would ride right now if it were safe, direct and convenient. It would also help solve road congestion and the health crisis. Little has been said about this option. Meanwhile governments continue to fund futile efforts to make driving quicker and more convenient.
Dealing with emergencies needs urgent action, major change, and courage. The ACT Budget on August 31 will show if the government is up to the task.
As I look at the vaccine rollout, quarantine planning, and the return of Australian citizens I wonder who is advising the government? I remember past programs, such as Cyclone Tracy in Darwin, the Bali bombings, where Australia was both efficient and valuable. That level of expertise seems to have disappeared. Who are they listening to?
* The wrong choice. The Morrison government is spending $600 million to build a new gas power station in the Hunter Valley. It will be a peaking plant that will be owned and operated by Snowy Hydro.
Snowy Hydro already owns and runs the majority of the peaking capacity in NSW. Most are hydro plants, but it also has another gas peaker.
The day the electricity price spiked to extreme levels across NSW, VIC and SA Snowy Hydro didn't bother switching on their gas peaker. It's expensive to run a gas peaker, and running it would also threaten the big profits being earned by its hydro plants.
In contrast, five utility batteries owned by less dominant participants all responded to the high prices.
The government has chosen the wrong technology and the wrong owner.
* Insult and injury. Angus Taylor will use $600 million of the public's money to build a gas-fired power station in the Hunter Valley ("Feds give green light to gas peaker", May 19, p11). To add insult to injury, the gas will come from fracking at Narrabri, one of Australia's most productive farming areas.
This is another dispiriting example of the government's blind spot on dispatchable energy. All energy experts agree peaking gas makes little commercial sense given the cheaper alternatives in the market, including battery storage - which would operate and deliver a variety of services all year round rather than just a few days for the gas generator.
The Australian Energy Market Operator has made it clear that the gas generator is not needed for any "reliability gap", nor will it deliver cheap power.
What is more, the funding commitment for the gas generator comes on the very same day that the International Energy Agency called for investment in new fossil fuel projects to stop immediately if the world has any chance of meeting climate targets.
Mr Taylor's assurance the plant will be ready for "clean" hydrogen" is yet another game of smirk and mirrors. Hydrogen from gas is still a significant emitter of greenhouse gases. Methane, which has twenty times the climate effect of carbon dioxide, is released during the fracking process.
Green hydrogen is made by using renewable energy to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. The government should be condemned for this con trick as well as for its blatant waste of public funding to oblige its donors in the gas industry.
<www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7261676/the-future-of-transport-is-here-and-it-is-called-the-bicycle>

Sat.22.5.21 Melbourne 'Herald Sun' BALLROOM OPENS FOR ART’S SAKE. NUI TE KOHA
Artist Patricia Piccinini reveals her show at the Flinders St Station Ballroom. Picture: Jake Nowakowski
FLINDERS St Station Ballroom — a lavish, almost mythological space closed to the public for 36 years — will reopen for a major exhibition.
Melbourne artist Patricia Piccinini has taken over the ballroom and 11 other rooms on the third floor of the iconic train hub for her immersive multi-sensory work, A Miracle Constantly Repeated.
Piccinini said she was honoured to present her work in the space, which was designed in 1899 and used as a dance hall, library, billiard room and boxing ring before being shut down in 1985.
“I walked in here, and I said, ‘I want spectacle, I want to have a party’, because that’s what used to happen here. It’s so grand,” she said.
The work is part of Melbourne’s inaugural winter festival, Rising, from May 26 to June 6, which showcases 750 Victorian artists.