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Subject: Sun.20.6.21 daily digest

Roderick

"210620Su-'CanberraTimes'-Sydney.emu-mask-ss.jpg" 

tram metros: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU57-a1G-JM
route 58, last night in Park St South Yarra. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klTG0Mo_kgg ;

Sun.20.6.21 daily digest
Aircraft: No ramp access to platforms until late 2021 (pedestrian-underpass works).
Flinders St: still with a lane closed for tunnel works.
Buses replace trains on sections of the Werribee line until the last train of Sun 20 Jun (level-crossing works).
Mernda/Hurstbridge/Lilydale/Belgrave/Alamein/Glen Waverley lines: All trains direct to/from Flinders St all day (maintenance works).  From loop stations, take a train from pfm 2 to Flinders St.
Ginifer Station car park will be undergoing asphalting, compacting and line-marking work until Thurs  24 June.  87 spaces at the north end of the commuter car park on St Albans Rd will be closed. The rest of the car park will be available to commuters.
Frankston line: All trains will terminate/originate at Caulfield from 10.00 to 19.15 today (works).  Connect to/from Pakenham/Cranbourne trains, stopping at all stations Caulfield - South Yarra during this time. 
15.14 Werribee line: Major delays (an 'operational incident' near Laverton). Trains may terminate/originate at Newport.
- 15.31 Delays clearing.
Frankston line: Buses replace trains Caulfield - Mordialloc from 20.45 until the last train (maintenance works).

Shhhh, here come Brisbane’s first oh-so-quiet electric buses. Tony Moore June 20, 2021
The noise of the indicators inside Brisbane’s first new electric bus is louder than the engine.
The new bus is purple. You can’t miss it.
But it is very quiet, so keep your eyes alert because you might not hear it.
Brisbane ’s first-ever electric bus has started running a loop around the inner city. Four will eventually operate in a 12-month trial.CREDIT:TONY MOORE
Our driver was also taking his first drive in the electric bus after receiving a two-minute briefing.
He adjusted his seat on E60001, then adjusted the mirrors, which sit high on the front of the Yutong bus, made in China, but assembled in Brisbane.
Starting off gently in Adelaide Street, he paused on the slight hill before turning right down Wharf Street. It was hard holding it on the hill.
“It’s going to take a while to get used to the way the wheels operate, there’s a bit of delay,” the driver said cautiously.
“It’s all good. But it’ll just take a bit of time.
“But jeez, it’s quiet.”
There were plenty of passengers on Brisbane’s first electric bus when I went for a 20-minute drive around the Brisbane CBD.
Perhaps 20 or so hopping on and off at the different stops around the City Loop link.
By the first week of July four electric buses will run the City Loop - Adelaide Street, Wharf Street, Eagle Street, Margaret Street, quick turn down to Alice Street and along the Botanic Gardens, before turning right up George Street and then left into Adelaide Street.
Brisbane’s first electric bus has begun to run the free City Loop as the city shows its carbon footprint has reduced by 7 per cent since 2017.CREDIT:TONY MOORE
The signs on the bus are in braille and in English. There are USB power slots and of course it’s airconditioned.
It has an electric display right up high behind the driver that tells you the next couple of stops and how long it will take to get there.
The electric bus talks to passengers as well.
“One minute to 146 Margaret Street,” it was telling me at one stage, then “three minutes to the Botanic Gardens Riverwalk”.
At one stage “Wharf Street” sounded like “Woff Street”, but the bus is free.
It struck me it could work well with city tourists, allowing them to get their bearings in Brisbane.
Most of us are familiar with tourists overseas donning headsets to get a quick history tour of the city and hopping on and off free buses in cities in Europe and North America.
Electric displays inside Brisbane’s new electric buses.CREDIT:TONY MOORE
It would not take much to put together a quick history of our First Nations people – the Jagera and Turrbul – then the history of Europeans in the city.
In fact, the bus route takes you past Parliament, down George Street, the old Queensland Government Printing Office, and a quick walk through to Queen’s Wharf Road and the Commissariat Store, one of Brisbane’s oldest buildings.
Given Brisbane’s new Star casino and resort complex on George Street will be largely finished at the end of 2022, the City Loop will be popular with city tourists within two years.
There are two routes: the City Loop 40 electric bus runs clockwise through 11 stops and the City Loop 50 runs through nine stops.
After 20 minutes we’re back in Adelaide Street at the stop outside Officeworks.
“Quiet, isn’t it? Very quiet indeed,” a woman seated behind me said.
“Those mirrors are going to get knocked off up there,” the driver said, gesturing at the high-set mirrors.
“But it seems OK. We’ll see.”
Last week, Labor and LNP councillors continued to joust in council chambers over the origin of Brisbane’s electric bus and the Brisbane Metro megabuses to be completed in China and Europe when the tenders were first announced before 2019.
But electric buses produce zero emissions, and the 60 electric Brisbane Metro megabuses will also produce zero emissions, although most of the electricity they run on is produced from coal.
Here is one interesting fact gleaned from Tuesday’s council meeting about running electric buses and Metro vehicles, which puts the issue in perspective.
Brisbane City Council has recently purchased more than 1 million megawatt-hours of electricity from renewable energy sources.
“And since 2017, Brisbane’s carbon footprint has reduced by 7 per cent,” council’s environment committee spokeswoman Tracy Davis said.
<www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/shhhh-here-come-brisbane-s-first-oh-so-quiet-electric-buses-20210615-p581ag.html>
* And here in N.S.W. our Coalition State Government are talking about Sydney's buses MIGHT be going Electric by around 2025.... knowing this mob it could be 3025 and at a cost of $10 million each
* The buses are new, but the City Loop routes have been going for years!
* The trolleybuses were electric.
* So were the Brisbane trams but we had to get rid of both to make way for more cars on inner city roads didn't we?

JUNE 20 2021 Sydney ordered to mask up as restrictions tighten
* Masks are compulsory on public transport until at least Thursday in Greater Sydney, Wollongong and Shellharbour. Picture: Shutterstock
Sydney has been ordered to mask up in the wake of three new infections in the city's eastern suburbs.
The cluster has grown to nine prompting health authorities to enforce masks indoors across seven local government areas.
Masks are also compulsory on public transport until at least Thursday in greater Sydney, Wollongong and Shellharbour.
Meanwhile, Queensland recorded one new infection, in a flight attendant.
<www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7305161/sydney-ordered-to-mask-up-as-restrictions-tighten>

[the Herald Sun site was down]