By Quentin Cockburn Esq
The upcoming state election should prove fascinating for the electorate. In this budget the state government has promised a massive upgrading of the public transport system. The flagship, (if I may mix metaphors) being the superb rail link from Melbourne Airport to Jeffs Shed. For those unfamiliar with Melbourne, that’s across the road from the Casino. There has been some concern that the rail link doesn’t actually go anywhere near where the general public want to go. For users of the Frankston and Dandenong lines, the bell weather seats, this upgrade will add a further 15 minutes to their travel time. They are not entirely impressed. I am. It’s a very good initiative. Since when did we need to provide rail lines that went anywhere useful? I like the idea of a big underground network, bit like the Maginot Line costing 15 billion and counting. It’s designed to look good, feel good, and be very efficient. By having no stations at places where anyone wants to go it shall be very efficient indeed. No need to stop off at the University, Carlton, Fitzroy and Sth Yarra as a bigger loop, but a single straight line to plonk people right to the door of Crown Casino. Now that’s vertically integrated private enterprise for you.
Of course this initiative pales into insignificance against the road budget. Roads are good for business ad we need more of them. Oil will soon make these roads obsolete, but a certain dictator learnt that photo ops for BIG infrastructure wont work unless it’s above ground! Get it!!
Now I’m all for it. In the early noughties, the Bendigo Rail Line was “upgraded” to become the ‘Fast Regional Rail Link’. The old dual track made operational in 1862 just wasn’t ‘up to standard’. Consultants were brought in from overseas, and a special authority tasked with making the rail upgrade ‘Worlds Best Practice’. People became worried when the central plank of the ‘upgrade’ was to replace the dual track with a single line to Kyneton. Over half the rail would be thus reduced. They, (the unrepresented non managerial public sans culottes swill) were told that the single track will be cheaper and more efficient. With ‘state of the art signalling’ run seamlessly. It sounded good. Imagine then, a bureaucrat telling you that the local highway will be reduced by half and made more efficient. Well that’s precisely what they did.
On good days the smart new Bombadier trains do run splendidly. But most of the time they are late, they wait on the siding at Harcourt for the ‘other train’ to pass and most critically when it’s hot. Which is apt to happen in Australia. They either have to run at reduced speed, (60kms per hour) or not at all. This happens quite a lot over summer. You see in the upgrade, they neglected the need for expansion joints in the tracks. They could’ve relied on 160 years of railway expertise on tap from amongst the locals, but eschewed it for expert advice from elsewhere, and imported rail (bulk buy) from somewhere else, (Pyonyang has been muted). As a public we protested to our member, a Labor hack Bob Cameron. He dismissed us as ‘nuisances’ and ‘troublemakers’. Since then the glossies at the station expound the benefits to the general public. The public occasionally laugh, (in the Russian tradition) from the amusement of it all.
There is a moral to this. When you destroy public assets and charge that same public a fee for the privelege of abusing them, produce a lot of press releases and glossies. I would like to quote from Goebbels, and the Davyd, the token gay from Little Britain, (and I paraphrase)’ There’s no point in a little lie when a great big lie will most assuredly do the trick’. And from Davyd, (I paraphrase) ‘The public in Australia are used to taking it up the choof’.
The moral of the story, politicians don’t use public transport, and public transport policy is designed to punish the users.