Monday 5 February 2024

The New Vehicle Efficiency Standards

A word cloud from the previous FES consultation

Yesterday the federal government has released an Impact Analysis paper on its proposed New Vehicle Efficiency Standards, and is seeking public feedback on it. I spent most of 2023 campaigning for this, so I thought I'd do a quick analysis of what they've put forward. 

Sunday 17 December 2023

New designs for Little Bridge Street

Concept art of the Little Bridge project (via CoB)

As part of its wider revamp of the Bridge Mall area, the City of Ballarat has released some new designs for Little Bridge Street, including the bus interchange. Let's take a look, starting with the stuff I think is a bit more contentious. 

Sunday 27 August 2023

The proposed Glenelg Highway bike path

It's been a while since posts - I've been busy with a new job - but I wanted to talk in a bit of detail about a new proposed shared use path along the Glenelg Highway in Sebastopol and Delacombe. The City of Ballarat is currently seeking feedback, so I wanted to talk through some of the opportunities this presents and encourage others to feed into this process. 
Proposed Glenelg Hwy path stages (via City of Ballarat)

Saturday 27 August 2022

Draft Ballarat Net Zero Emissions Plan

The City of Ballarat's Draft Net Zero Emissions Plan (via CoB)

The City of Ballarat has passed a motion to come up with a plan for the whole municipality to reach net zero emissions by 2030. This is an incredibly ambitious goal, and it's fantastic to see this level of ambition from the council. They've released a draft plan - so how'd they do? 

Monday 22 August 2022

The politics of SRL

Concept art of an SRL train (via Big Build)

In Part 1, we looked at what the Parliamentary Budget Office actually says about the costs of building SRL, and why the media narrative has gotten this wrong. In Part 2 I want to talk more broadly about the politics and messaging of SRL. 

Sunday 21 August 2022

Mythbusting the costs of SRL

The Suburban Rail Loop (via PBO)

There's been a lot of political movement on SRL lately, so I thought it was worth a follow-up to my post from last year, to go through some of the myths and misconceptions that have arisen around the project. Today in Part 1 I want to explain why most of the media reporting on the PBO costings is dead wrong, and in Part 2 I'll talk about the political realities of campaiging on a project like this. 

Wednesday 11 May 2022

Travel Diaries: Adelaide


After two years of going basically nowhere, I recently took an interstate trip to Adelaide for a friend's wedding - so a few thoughts on the transport and urbanism I encountered on the trip.