Stark contrast between private roads and public transport

The contrast is stark.

Victoria’s aging public transport system is rather dilapidated, pretty much ignored and still rooted largely to its 19^th century infrastructure.



A logo  identifying Victoria's
public transport system.

Meanwhile our road system - a publicly paid for, and owned, infrastructure that enriches the privately-owned motor industry and its spin-off periphery businesses – seems to get better every day.

A recent return trip to Melbourne on our patch-work-quilt-like public transport system came on the same day as an announcement about the completion and opening of a multi-million dollar section of Victorian freeway.

The contrast between the rather sad publicly owned train network and the slick, shiny and brand new publicly paid for freeway that obviously benefits you and me, but primarily private enterprise, was blatant.

A recent visit to Shepparton by State Minister for Public Transport and Roads, Terry Mulder, was followed by an “upgrade” to train services between Shepparton and Melbourne.

Many pleaded with Mr Mulder during that visit for a train service that would arrive in Melbourne before 9:00am on work days.

Mr Mulder subsequently acted and the train that had left about 7am and arrived in Melbourne about 9:30am, now leaves Shepparton at 6:31am and arrives at Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station at a scheduled 9:10am – that’s half-an-hour earlier in departure for a 20 minute arrival gain and yet still 10 minutes after most work days have started.

Personally the so-called “upgrade” seems to have been pointless – we are all forced to rise earlier and it benefits no one except the State Government which can legitimately claim it listened and responded to public pressure.

The changes, however, were cosmetic and of no practical use.

Mr Mulder needs to be informed by experience - all went fine on that recent Melbourne-bound journey, beyond the 30 minute earlier departure, until the train stopped at Tallarook for what is normally a one-minute stop.

However, that one-minute stop became five to be followed by an announcement that because of Metro train problems, our stop could be 20 minutes.

We crawled on, hesitated a few times, stopped again and finally arrived at Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station at nearly ten o’clock – nearly 50 minutes late and about three and a half hours after leaving Shepparton.

A friend recently returned from Japan praising the country’s train stations, saying they were clean, had wonderful facilities, food and drink and serviced by trains that arrived within seconds of their scheduled times.

Victoria’s public transport system, despite the deluded imaginations of our politicians, is mere shadow of what happens in other parts of the world.

Road transport is no longer an effective or efficient way of moving people or goods about and rather than further expanding a problematic and wasteful road network, we should be spending on a sophisticated public transport system.