SkyBus compromise Airport transport

Searches for transport to/from Melbourne Airport (IATA: MEL, ICAO: YMML) still get dominated by the SkyBus service. They themselves now operate wider services and compete/combine with the government public transport to offer quite a few options with little way to compare between them. So how do they compare on a competitive route? We’ll show you who’s cheapest or quickest.

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Misrepresenting Cycling

The cycling routes through Melbourne city are not just discontinuous and incoherent, but also invisible for much of their distance. Where it is either safe or permissible to ride a bicycle is not always clear, leading to much confusion from people trying to navigate their way around the city by bicycle or other users not expecting bicycles sharing their space. But efforts from the council don’t seem to be improving much of this.

Melburnians don’t drive far

Its easy to believe everyone else behaves just like ourselves do but reality is often radically different. Private motor vehicles are the dominant transport method but how are they actually used? Continuing with the VISTA survey data we can look at how far Melbourne vehicles travel each day.

Accessible Transport

For all the effort put into making public transport more accessible how much is it actually improving? We can look to the census travel to work data for a representative example of mode share and how this has changed over time.

Getting on Busses

Another round of level crossing removals and the train replacement busses are out in action on the Frankston line, but whats on the ground has some glaring problems. They’re obvious to able bodied people but quite the barrier for those with mobility difficulties.

Prioritising Speed

Returning to statistics on transport in Melbourne the VISTA data set captures how people are choosing to travel, and for the most part they prioritise speed. This is entirely logical for the individual but the sum of our choices are shaping the direction of the city and it may not be quite what you expect.

Pedestrian space is for Pedestrians

Shared space has been somewhat of a catch all for lumping together different transport modes with pedestrians, but Melbourne takes it a step further with uncontrolled use of golf carts within the city.

Squeezing out Cycling

Cycling often gets left forgotten (or wilfully ignored) in building Melbourne’s road infrastructure and the places where it already exists provides little assurance that it will remain. Breaking just a small section of a continuous route can quickly destroy its utility, but that seems to be considered an acceptable trade for minor improvements for motor vehicles.

Slapping on the Paint

Melbourne city council like to promote their support of cycling but when you look deeper its often nothing more than a charade, highly visible window dressing that has little practical value or worse makes cycling less safe as here.

Unseen vehicles in Melbourne

Melbourne city struggles with increasing transport demands year on year and steadily reducing traffic speeds, a common challenge across many major cities of the world. Moving more transport from private cars to more space efficient modes has seen roads closed and pedestrian, bicycle, and tram infrastructure grow but just as soon as space appears its quickly taken over.