So I had my first motorcycle accident
Leaving from work I travel north up Queen st in Melbourne. It was wet, sprinkling and sleeting a bit and so I did have all the good gear on. The other cars on the road quickly showed that the full moon was out and that I needed to pay all the attention I could.
Queen St like most in the city does get busy, I also have buses pulling in and out, and a lot of centre road parking. This means cars can pull out quickly with low visibility and also turn into them taking a wide run but it also means that (more…)
Suspension Update
I needed to get some suspension work done on my bike, the Suzuki 250F across has done 50,000kms and was well due for a new kit in the front shocks.
I was about to get this done at my local service place along with the big engine service, when I happened upon a professional suspension place, and Izzy told me he would be happy to do a special deal.
While getting serviced, the forks went down to suspensions-r-us where the kit was put in and the springs replaced. All tuned up for me, customised and done right.
I now have “the best suspension for a 250 Suzuki in Victoria” and how can I argue, it is wonderful to ride, pulls up great, turns effortlessly and rides over those nasty speed bumps unnoticed.
Thanks Izzy.
Contact him at www.suspensionsrus.com.au or Phone 03 5998-1021
Beat that train, Peddle that bus
What a liberty…
The Connex group who has the primary contract for running metropolitan railways services here in Melbourne, after months of discussing options on how to ferry more passengers, after amending their timetables to help just a little, who back-stepped on rejecting bicycles on trains, who haven’t yet delivered on their promise to remove seats and call commuters land sardines, have now come up with a brilliant plan to make rail commuting a wondrous thing…
They are going to change the seat covers.
Yes, bright new seat covers to some 43,000 seats are going to make the conditions better. No more sitting on torn seats, or ones with holes, they will now be comfortable, at least to those who can actually get a seat, we still have many more standing-sardine commuters yet to satisfy. Perhaps some new floor coverings for those on their feet?
More bus stories of despair
I do love a good blog, a chance to get things from my chest. If I took it all on board I would be six feet under by now. Sometimes it’s just frustrating and there is nobody to tell, nobody that will listen and even rarer is anybody that can help.
Take for instance another wonderful bus trip last night. The weather here is turning colder and at last a bit wetter, it’s getting into winter and that makes public transport all the more uncomfortable.
Transport timetables are out the window
I think they are making it up as they go along, I reported earlier that it is often seen that a busy and delayed bus will be caught up by the next one, particularly in peak times, and I can sort of understand how it can happen, however the other night, when I got to my stop after work there was already a bus there waiting to go. A bit unusual but this sometimes happens, they sometimes start their run from my stop, other ones come by from down the hill and fly by, but never ever running on time or to any schedule that I can find.
Gas/Petrol, Litres/Gallons and all the conversions…
Today I saw a story that people in the US might be going to pay up to $4.00 per gallon for gas (or petrol as we know it). That seemed to be rather a lot but on further reading I found this was a future peak forecast, not unlikely but some time away in the near future. The full story is here.
For us in Australia, this price comparison between $US/Gallon and Our $AU/Litre is hard to judge. We are paying now upward (and over sometimes) $1.50/Litre for petrol (or Gas) and off-hand we have no comparative concept of what that equates to, so I did some calculations…
At last some changes, public transport improves
No sooner do I write on the problems of our public transport, it gets an actual nudge on the side of improvement. After all this time, a new schedule will be rolled out, from later this month toward the rest of the year introducing new and extra runs increasing services in real terms and also changing the route some of the services take when they get to the city, avoiding the loop and making the journey a bit quicker. Check the whole story.
These are real changes that will improve the situation, for many of our branches the train serves delivers people to.
Melbourne's Public Transport – So wonderful
It has been getting some press lately and it seems even the government are paying attention, but the reality is that NOTHING is being done. In all the years we have had to endure a straining and bulging system the actual system has not changed. No more trains, no significant changes in timetables, no extra services, no improvements to ticketing, loading, performance, nothing.
So if anybody wonders what it’s like, for those that are in a long queue on a major road (another symptom of the overall problem) then over the next few weeks I may take and post some photo’s here, showing the extent and reality of the situation. Like this one…
About 5.45pm I returned back to flinders street from Brighton to catch a train out toward Sydenham. This is what I was presented with, and it is NORMAL! The trains were not late (much) and this is what was waiting. It actually shows two problems, one that the situation for transport is bad and also the other, that Australians, and Melbournians are leaving work well after 5pm, if they havent left town after closing, why are they still waiting for trains at almost 6pm?
So yeah, unfortunately I didn’t take a picture on the train that I caught, so many faces staring at me from a standing position I felt I would have been beaten to death for even thinking of taking a photo. Really, in that next train that left from Flinders Street it was packed, and through the tunnel it got worse, more people loading on at every stop. Past Footscray we went with few people getting off there, it got no better. I didn’t see anybody that I could point to as a politician, I think they all had chauffeur driven cars getting them home earlier than the rush hour so it went without saying, the people responsible for this fiasco do not know what’s going on, they don’t have to pay for the tickets to ride on this cattle service, and speaking of cattle, they get treated better than the people do.
The UK has begun banning Australian wool because of mulesing, well they should stop using Australian products because of exactly the same reason, this country is treating it’s workforce like cattle and then smacking them with a red hot branding iron to make a point. So wake up, get more trains and busses and improve the situation because our states and cities are not coping with the flood of population increase and if you want more babies, then they better have somewhere to live, work and commute when they grow up. Stop talking about options, stop introducing new ticket schemes that never actually get started and operating, just DO SOMETHING. Oh and this great idea of removing seats so we can cram more people into a carriage is (dare I say it) reminding me of a German transport system of the 40′s…
So I will take more pictures, just camera photo’s to share and perhaps a new section of this site might soon appear to take your submissions also, or perhaps, like the one above, send them through to the newspapers and other places from your mobile to get the actual picture, the reality and the situation out there to the people that matter.
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