PTUA - An open letter to Premier Napthine

[ozbob]

Herald Sun 1st July 2014

[#Metro]

Dump the new railway lines (except perhaps the Metro tunnel), and there will be plenty of cash for bus upgrades.

Toronto gets by with very few stations. The secret (not so secret now) is to squeeze efficiencies from the system by intensive use (trains every 3-10 minutes) and wide bus connections dumping high volumes of pax into the rail network that do not go to the CBD.

Melbourne is in dire need of a city wide bus review as well. Buses are terrible outside the Smartbus network.

[Gazza]

Yeah, to be honest it bugs me a bit how they trot out the line that "The East West road tunnel will consume road funding for decades" and then in the same breath say they want rail to Rowville and Doncaster, both of which would be underground, and would also chew up a lot of money for non spectacular ridership.
Apart from stuff like signalling upgrades, #1 priority for giving Melbourne for public transport should be establishing a high frequency bus grid, since Melbournes road layout, particularly in the South East, is perfect for that. Much quicker and cheaper in the time being.