By The Editor
It is said that, besides the AFL, there are two things most Victorians love to discuss: public transport and the weather.
While many conversations have blown towards the wild weekend weather, today’s multiple delays and safety concerns over our trains have once again put our State’s infrastructure needs in the spotlight:
Major service disruptions, including a derailment and eight trains taken out of service, have hit Metro as the Herald Sun exclusively revealed serious safety issues this morning [Herald Sun]
Megan: “VECCI believes that maintenance of existing infrastructure is vital to ensure a safe, efficient and reliable transport system in Victoria.
As demonstrated by reports in the Herald Sun today and the chaos last year when tracks buckled in the heat, the State Government cannot afford to ignore maintenance of existing infrastructure.
VECCI suggests concreting suburban rail sleepers rather than relying on wooden sleepers as one example of a practical step that could be undertaken by the State Government. While it would not be a “glamorous” project compared to building new infrastructure, it could greatly improve the overall safety and reliability of our transport network.”
[...] to its number of residents by 2036 – but with our State’s resources and infrastructure showing the strain, population growth is becoming an increasing [...]
I agree with RGreen, money does not seem to have been allocated the right way by the state government.
Too much money wasted on Myki and advertising about how much investment is being put into the system but not enough on basic upgrades to our system. Not a day goes by without cancellations caused by overhead cables falling down or broken signals or trees falling onto tracks.
I’m also disappointed at the way that the operator gets the blame. The Premier needs to take more responsibility for the state of the network, not just blame Metro.
Melbourne’s train have been a joke for more than 20 years. But hive me a break, $1.4 Billion for a ticketing system? Are you serious? We should have given everyone free transport, used the $1.4 Bill to build a hospital and called it quits. Anyone who has travelled to major cities overseas already know that they all have great ticketing systems, but we victorians insist on reinventing the wheel for the second time when it comes to ticketing.
Metro do a great job in Hong Kong, but our 1930′s infrastructure is going to take a long time to bring it up to something resembling current standards.
Thanks to Metro for highlighting the poor state of our track and signalling.
Good luck Victoria, the current govt couldn’t run a model train set let alone the real thing.