Finally, a review of Ballarat's bus network

This year's Victorian budget included some funds for a review of Ballarat's bus network. This is something the people of Ballarat have been campaigning for since the network was last changed, in 2016-17, and was a core focus of my advocacy back when I was Convener of the Ballarat Branch of the PTUA. It's been a real uphill battle to get this review, so now we've finally got it, what do we want it to do? 

More services for western Victoria

This weekend will see upgrades on trains and buses across a lot of western Victoria, so a quick look at what they'll mean. 

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? 

Clean Transport 101: Replace

Last time, we discussed how to Reduce overall travel demand. This time, let's talk about how we can Replace unsustainable trips with more sustainable ones. 

Clean Transport 101: Reduce, Replace, Repower

Transport is Australia's third-largest, and fastest-growing, source of emissions. If we're to have any chance of keeping climate change to 1.5°C, we have to urgently clean up our transport system - but how? 

Updated designs for Deer Park Station

The latest render of the new Deer Park Station (via LXRA)

LXRA have released updated designs for the new Deer Park Station to be built as part of the removal of the Station Street/Mount Derrimut Road level crossing. Let's take a close look at the details. 

New bus interchange and services for Ballarat

Construction on the bus interchange (midground) and staff car park (foreground)

Last Friday, PTV announced that as of 19 December, Ballarat buses would start using the new bus interchange at the railway station, and that Ballarat's bus routes would start running a bunch of additional services. So what does this mean for the travelling public? 

The legacy of Ballarat's tramways

The shape of Ballarat's tram network in 1971

On Sunday 19 September 1971, 50 years ago today, the last ever revenue service on Ballarat's tramways ran from Lydiard Street to Sebastopol. The mayors of Sebastopol and Ballarat ceremoniously piloted it back to the depot, and the transition of Ballarat's public transport network to motor buses was complete, with the tramways entering their preservation era. But the legacy of the tramways echoed through Ballarat for many years after, and can still be heard today. 

New Ballarat bus timetables

A bus heading down Sturt Street

With very substantial changes to the timetables on the Ballarat rail line introduced at the end of January, the Department of Transport has revamped the timetables for the Ballarat bus network, and launched them last weekend. Let's take a look at what this means. 

Are Trackless Trams the solution to our problems?

The CRRC Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit system, aka Trackless Tram (via N509Z)

Plenty of lobby groups and government bodies have floated the idea of installing "trackless trams" in cities around the world, but at the time of writing, the original 6.5km test track in Zhuzhou has only been succeeded by one line in revenue service, a 17.7km line in Yibin. This presents a huge problem - with basically no real-world examples to look at, people can make huge claims about how great (and especially how cheap) this technology is, and it's hard to sort fact from fiction. 

But the Federal Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure, Alan Tudge, announced a while back that the government would fund a business case for a trackless tram in Perth; and it's something that various lobby groups like to float for places closer to home like Geelong and Ballarat from time to time as well. So I'm going to do my best to cut through the hype, and see how they really stack up. 

Can buses attract more passengers?

There is a persistent view among some politicians, policy-makers and members of the general public, that people won't use buses unless they absolutely have to. There is a not-insignificant (though shrinking) chunk of the population who think public transport as a whole is only for people who can't afford to drive a car, and that anyone who has the option of driving would be mad to do anything else. But there's a much larger group who see it as perfectly valid to take a train or a tram - and who may regularly do so themselves - but who would never take a bus if they could avoid it, and assume everyone else thinks the same way. I think this is worth examining, because it has a lot of implications for the policy - and the politics - that drives our transport systems. 

Goodbye Bungaree Loop

Bungaree Station in 1986 (via @railmaps)

The Ballarat line has been shut down for a month from 28 December, as part of the final push to complete the Ballarat Line Upgrade project. This means that the last train to ever run on the Bungaree Loop ran on 27 December, so let's take a look at the history of the line. 

The Squaresville algorithm: optimising Melbourne's buses

Diagram of the proposed layout (via Steve Pemberton)

Last week, RMIT Masters student Steve Pemberton released a paper on optimising Melbourne's bus network by changing from its current "tailor-made" network, where many buses meander through backstreets to ensure most of Melbourne has a one-seat journey to key destinations, to more of an "everywhere to everywhere" grid-based system, which prioritises speed and short waiting times over coverage, and was tested by a computer model. This is a great example of the tension that exists between patronage and coverage in public transport planning, and presents a good starting point for something that could actually be implemented in Melbourne, so let's take a look at it. 

Amsterdam Lelylaan: a model for level crossing removals

The current spate of level crossing removals means that more stations are being rebuilt around Melbourne than at any time in living memory. These stations, by virtue of the selection process, are generally adjacent to roads - and often those roads are major public transport corridors, whether for trams or buses. Perhaps because we've gone from zero to 100 so quickly, and therefore don't have a ton of station design experience in our local public service, some of these new stations haven't been ideal from an urban design perspective - in fact in some cases they are worse than the ground-level stations they're replacing. The Dutch, however, are very good at this, so I thought I'd go through a case study to see what lessons Melbourne can learn from it.

A Green New Deal for Ballarat

A wind farm outside Port Fairy (source)

Originally published on 02-12-2019 in the Ballarat Courier as The deal that could offer Ballarat's future the most. In light of the recession that COVID-19 will push us into, it's more important than ever to stimulate our economy in an environmentally-friendly way. 

Why service levels matter in accessible transport

Should High Speed Rail be part of a green stimulus?

Australia, and the world, is in the midst of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and everyone is (quite rightly) pretty focused on the task of actually fighting the disease right now. But it is quite clear that this fight will tip us over into a recession - if not a full-blown depression - and so we're starting to see some early thoughts on what kinds of actions governments can take to get the economy moving once we're in that recovery phase.

The Belated Ballarat Bus Interchange

I'm back in Australia and have been quite busy getting my life organised again, hence the lack of posts (searching for rental properties is The Worst). Some more Travel Diaries and some more substantial local stuff should be coming soon, but just a quick post today on some news that broke last weekend.

Diagram of the precinct redevelopment (via VicTrack)

New accessible bus stops along Main Road

VicTrack recently installed a bunch of new bus shelters along the Main Rd/Geelong Rd corridor in Ballarat, which I think deserve a bit of attention. New shelters and surrounding works have been installed at Callow Street, Elsworth Street, Kinnersley Avenue, Milverton Lane, Glenvale Road, Shire Avenue, Gear Avenue, Elizabeth Street, Barkly Street, and the Midland Highway. All of these were existing stops along the route, but some were just poles in the grass, some had shelters but no paths leading to them, and so on. All needed an upgrade.

Locations of the stops

Connecting Ballarat