Are passenger trains to Mildura worth it?

The T&G Mutual building in Mildura (via Mattinbgn)

A few months ago, the Parliamentary Budget Office released the results of modelling instigated by Liberal Democratic MLC Tim Quilty, who represents the Victorian upper house region of Northern Victoria. Quilty had asked the PBO to cost a proposal to run three shuttle services per week in each direction from Maryborough to Mildura, and to pay for this by scrapping the Victorian Government's subsidy for the Overland. To my mind this is completely the wrong way to go about things - running a train every second day makes it unlikely to be useful for people, and cannibalising the Overland to do it is just petty and unnecessary - but it does at least give us some very useful numbers from which to extrapolate. 

Fact-checking The Australia Institute's EV Mythbusting

The Australia Institute has been very vocally opposed to Victoria's EV tax, and recently put out a video called Electric Vehicle Myths Busted with Dan Bleakley from Coal Miners Driving Teslas. While the video does a good job of calling out some of the myths that right-wing politicians and culture warriors have been circulating for years, it also repeats some of the myths TAI have been perpetuating throughout the EV tax debate - so I thought I'd quickly run through it and fact-check them. As I've said before, EVs are much better than ICE vehicles - but they're no silver bullet. 

Audrey Quicke & Richie Merzian from The Australia Institute

A new station for Deer Park

Draft design for the new Deer Park Station (via LXRA)

A few weeks ago, LXRA announced that the removal of the Mount Derrimut Road level crossing and the revamp of Deer Park Station would be happening a year ahead of schedule - it'll still happen a bit after the Robinsons Road and Fitzgerald Road crossings, presumably to help manage local traffic during construction, but they're now aiming for 2024 instead of 2025. They've also released some draft designs for the new station, and consultation has just opened, so let's take a look. 

Travel Diaries: Germany and Denmark (Part 2)

Bombardier Twindexx train on a DB Regio Schleswig-Holstein service (via Regionalbahn 77)

After a few days spent checking out Hamburg, I was off to Denmark. I ended up with a First Class ticket on a cheap deal for the first leg of my trip, on a double-decker DB Regio train to Flensburg, right on the Danish border. 

Travel Diaries: Germany and Denmark (Part 1)

The outbound (red) and inbound (blue) paths of my trip

A few days after I got back from London, I was off again - this time heading east, on a bit of a loop through Germany and Denmark. 

Designs for the new Bridge Mall

Renders for the new Bridge Mall design (via CoB)

The City of Ballarat's chosen design firm, Hassell, has come back with a preferred design option for the Bridge Mall. It's going before Council for approval tonight, so let's take a look. 

Updated drafts for Deer Park level crossings

The new design for Robinsons Rd, looking south (via LXRA)

About nine months after releasing their first draft designs, the Level Crossing Removal Authority (LXRA) have released updated drafts for the Robinsons Rd, Deer Park and Fitzgerald Rd, Ardeer level crossing removals. I made some suggestions when the initial drafts were released, so let's take a look and see what's different.