Only if you’re gullible enough to believe it.
In Sydney, the Opal card will still be the cheaper option.
The good thing in Melbourne is that relatively short expiry dates on the myki cards means they could roll out replacement tech without ever ‘changing’ the system. I think Opal is something near a decade?
The obvious is using NFC, then most people can shift to using phone apps, while still being able to use physical cards or tap and go.
I have no real issues with myki. I liked the Opal readers better, but that’s only because of the clearer display of your balance, not something inherent in the system itself. The new generation readers are just as fast as the others I’ve used in Sydney and Brisbane.
It was really just those excruciatingly slow first gen readers that were a problem for myki. With the replacement readers it’s no different to systems in other cities anymore.
Ferry McFerryface will be renamed May Gibbs. NSW transport minister Andrew Constance had claimed that the joke Sydney Ferry name was the most popular voted choice, however Nine News has revealed that it actually attracted minimal votes, which means that Constance has misled the voters of NSW.
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Disgraceful. What were they thinking?
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Andrew Constance is an embarrassment to the state of NSW. I really hope he gets voted out next March, if he doesn’t step aside/get sacked soon.
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So Saint Gladys’ downfall will be a shitty boat rather than the disgraceful status of the train network it seems.
This country baffles me so regularly.
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I’m reserving this for the next election/leadership spill
I’m not convinced that Labor is a better alternative, though.
They still have no long term vision for the state, no planned infrastructure projects or anything. I’d swing my vote around if they were spruiking big infrastructure projects (public transport or roads), but they aren’t interested in changing anything - they seem to want everything to revert back to as it was in 2011 and stay there.
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Which seems a little strange considering Queensland (Cross River Rail), Victoria (crossing removal) and WA Labor (Metronet) had big ticket PT infrastructure items which may have been a factor in their election.
The reality is that NSW Labor really are just as terrible as the NSW Libs. They all appear to be incompetent fools who would run the state into the ground if they got power.
It seems to me that NSW Labor are now just as socially conservative as the NSW Liberals, with their main heartland now being in Western Sydney. So there’s a major yuck factor for people like me. The greyhounds debacle also left a very bad taste in my mouth. NSW Labor seems to favour car transport greatly as well, and vehemently oppose toll roads by suggesting that they hurt battlers.
Plus, with the previous election, their infrastructure policy seemed farcical. It was basically identical to the Liberal Party’s, but with two major projects crossed out - Westconnex Stage 3 and Sydney Metro from Chatswood to Bankstown.
This is because they were not going to sell off the electricity network to pay for these projects, and they didn’t want to borrow money either. NSW Labor was notorious for being extremely tight with the purse strings and refusing to spend money on infrastructure during their last stint in government, which is part of the reason why Sydney’s infrastructure is in such a poor state at the moment.
What I think Labor should do for the next election is have some form of long term vision for the state. I’m thinking things like high speed rail between major population centres in the state to relieve pressure on property prices in Sydney by allowing people to commute in from longer distances, as well as new train lines across the city. That kind of thing. And they should borrow money to pay for it, too. If they invest in the state’s infrastructure and get a decent benefit out of it, that’s an investment in the state which will likely return more tax dollars in the future.
I think Foley must be dumped - he’s shown many examples of simply not knowing the basics about what he’s talking about.
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Bingo. I’ve never heard anyone say a nice thing about NSW Labor and the leader seems totally useless too.
High speed rail linking Sydney with Woollongong, Newcastle and Dubbo would be a big vote winner. I hope for a Queensland equivalent one day so I don’t have to drive to Toowoomba.
Queensland Government today announced the transport plan for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. During the Games period, trains between Brisbane and Gold Coast will run 24/7 with higher frequency, but the rest of South East Queensland will have a reduced timetable. Beenleigh line, which shares the tracks with the Gold Coast line between Brisbane and Beenleigh, will be the worst hit. From April 5 to 15, trains will only stop at a handful of Beenleigh line stations, with buses replacing trains for the rest of the line.
Lame but expected. Merivale Bridge means a maximum of 24 trains per hour shared between Gold Coast, Beenleigh and Cleveland lines.
Still, guess I won’t be using the train for work that week
Perth’s is actually the oldest of the 5 capital cities. It was about a year ahead of the Go Card
What’s a Perth?
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I missed a word. I meant to say Perth’s ‘Smartrider’ is the oldest smartcard system out of the 5 main capital cities.
Ok so I just had a look at the Commonwealth Game’s “plan”, and one particularly galling choice is the decision to stop trains at the following stations on the Beenleigh line:
Beenleigh
Loganlea
Woodridge
Altandi
Coopers Plains
Yeronga
That’s all well and good, except for the last one (my station). I have no idea why they picked Yeronga over Yerongpilly, for a couple of reasons. First of all, Yeronga has not been renovated in over 30 years and looks like a blight, while Yerongpilly is clean. Secondly, Yeronga has no disabled access - you need to take several flights of stairs (including a road bridge) to get to the station - while Yerongpilly was upgraded three years ago with lifts and therefore is fully able to take wheelchairs. Finally, Yerongpilly has been in the past a terminating station for some services from Roma Street, and used to be one of the only stops which the express Gold Coast services stopped at in urban Brisbane (this was changed a couple of years back).
There is literally no reason why Yeronga is preferable to Yerongpilly as a stop, especially at a time when “international attention” and a lot of foreign tourists will be using the network, some of whom will be using wheelchairs.
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I’m hoping that is a typo and that they will stop at Yeerongpilly rather than Yeronga.
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Noble Park station has opened this morning.
here is something for @pelican and those Simpson’s meme posters 
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Except it isn’t a Simpsons meme
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