Driving & Traffic

That shot looks like Yarra Park but to get there they’ll need to drive down a few public roads. I agree, who does the risk assessment on this?

Not just risk assessment, but what’s the law? I assume there’s a special event permit to provide an exemption to the normal seatbelt laws, but (as already pointed out) the dodgy seating remains unnecessary given convertibles have been used elsewhere/in similar situations.

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Presumably there’s special event permits (and probably other safety check) for this sort of thing, but I agree that it’s a bit dodgy when convertibles have been used in similar situations.

Although if you want to talk about dubious safety conditions for vehicle-related entertainment at special events, how about this of a warm-up performance at the Sydney Royal Easter Show in 2015:

Probably even worse than a ute (which I’ve also seen used for warm-up performances at the show - country musician standing on a ute with a guitar & mic, that sort of thing), because it looks to be incredibly easy to accidentally slip and fall off that temporary stage - imagine the insurance payouts and potential lawsuits if that happened! :open_mouth:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/victoria/teen-charged-with-attempted-murder-after-alleged-flinders-street-incident-20171001-gys26e.html

The 15-year-old Knoxfield boy was charged with two counts of attempted murder, six counts of reckless conduct endangering life, and assaulting and resisting a police officer.

I was surprised that a whole bunch of bystanders were yelling at the police to shoot him.

Then there’s the one guy who yells “IN HIS LEG!!!”

Probably best leave the policing strategy to the police, guys.

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Sydney is notorious for its traffic jams, but now Melbourne has the country’s worst traffic congestion according to Grattan Institute.

It comes as Transdev’s $550 million Doncaster Bus Rapid Transit proposal was reportedly rejected. What is the Victorian Government going to do to relive congestion on the Eastern Freeway without a railway or an East West Link?

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When Melbourne’s freeways stop… They stop.

Like giant 10 lane car parks.

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Clearways and reconfiguring intersections on Hoddle St. Planning North West Link I think would help the city end of the Eastern but may cause congestion further along, either at Bulleen or Ringwood. Personally, I’d like to see all of that, a railway AND East West link done. Yep, I live in the east.

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Yes I forgot the reconfiguring of intersections into “continuous flow” pattern along Hoddle Street.

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Melbourne has huge freeways covering its major routes, but where there aren’t freeways, there’s usually a six or eight lane high speed arterial road with service roads to separate local and long distance traffic and an 80km/h speed limit (eg Nepean and Burwood Hwys, Springvale Rd. Therefore, in free-flow conditions driving anywhere is going to be a lot faster than the equivalent journey in Sydney, and the ratio of gridlocked speed versus free-flow speed is going to be a lot lower.

Many of Sydney’s areas are only covered by conventional six-lane arterial roads for most of the journey (e.g. Pacific Highway for North Shore, Princes Highway for Southern Suburbs), with freeways only coming into play for a small distance before the CBD. So obviously that will drag down the free-flow times in Sydney.

Somewhat related, I made this map a few days ago which shows what Sydney’s inner city area could have looked like had its ambitious 1960s and 1970s expressway and arterial road plans had actually been built:

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Given that so many of their busses are currently off the road, I’m not surprised.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/east/more-than-30-of-melbournes-transdev-buses-ordered-off-the-road-after-failing-roadworthy-checks/news-story/321d717549650a5f1acf01d005f00b67

Neville Wran axed what was planned, and sold the F4 land from Concord Rd through to the City. The F4 should have been built back then.

Had those freeways been built, the Western Distributor would have been able to live up to its name, by distributing traffic from the Sydney Harbour Bridge to three freeways going in different directions. But in return we would not have seen the Anzac Bridge and Eastern Distributor in its current form.
However it was unusual to see the planned route of Sydney-Newcastle Freeway entering the CBD via Balmain and Glebe. It would have been more logical for the freeway to join Warringah Freeway and enter the CBD via the Harbour Bridge or Harbour Tunnel.

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For a Melburnian, you sure know a hell of a lot about Sydney roads

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Yes I do have interest in major road projects around the country, given I studied transport engineering as part of my Bachelor of Engineering degree in university.

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That’s really interesting :slight_smile:

I would say that this is the milemarker with the furthest most destination on it that exists in Australia.
This one mentions Darwin being a whopping 3,434 km away, yet it’s still within the Brisbane metro area!!

(apologies for the quality, as it has been taken from Google Street View).

I think this is a good idea as it would discourage foreign tourists from trying to drive long distances.

There are a couple on the Gateway Motorway also in Brissie that mention distances of around 1,700 km to Cairns, but even in this vast land, inclusions of destinations on milemarkers over 1,000 km away are rare.

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There’s one in Brisbane with Melbourne.

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When one travels out of Sydney, the first inclusion of Melbourne on a distance sign is at Ingleburn (between Liverpool & Campbelltown) along the Hume Motorway (M31), just past the Brooks Road exit. Along the Princes Highway (A1), its first mention is between Sutherland & Engadine.
As for the first inclusion of Brisbane on a distance sign as you head north, it doesn’t appear until past the Hunter Expressway/Newcastle Link Road interchange near Newcastle, whether you’re travelling along the Pacific Motorway (M1) or the Hunter Expressway (M15). The first mention of Adelaide on a sign is when approaching the Sturt Highway exit between Gundagai & Tarcutta.

If you travel out of Canberra towards Melbourne, the first mention of it on a distance sign is just after the start of the Barton Highway past the interchange with Northbourne Avenue & Federal Highway. When travelling from Melbourne towards Sydney, the first mention of the latter is an exit sign along Western Ring Road, notifying an exit ahead for Hume Motorway, which mentions Seymour & Sydney on the sign.

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Talking about road signs, VicRoads changed their policy (there’s elaborate handbooks/manuals online for the design and engineering of everything from signs to freeways to technology to conduits/power and lighting).

Up until a couple of years ago, all signs would include the “VicRoads” logo in the bottom right.

Now the ones made remove that & have a thin white line border like NSW.

First photo is the one used 1990s-2000s, commonly still seen across VIC, then the same but with the newer logo (third photo) from 2009 & now the newer one (second photo)

images-238images-145images-205

VIC also had the alpha-numeric route numbering system decades prior to anyone else.

“M” is a class (defined on the VicRoads website), rather than “Motorway” (as NSW define it).

Meaning roads don’t have to be a feeeway in VIC, to be classified as “M” (e.g.) M420 South Gippsland Hwy.

The number is given in relation to a geographic ring or something too

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