Big Kev scrubs himself out as new chief plans a major makeover. (SMH / James Chessell)
Picture from the Sydney Morning Herald.
I think the picture speaks for itself. Good on Big Kev for having a go at it though.
November 2004
Monthly Archive
Current Events18 Nov 2004 08:38 am
Picture from the Sydney Morning Herald.
I think the picture speaks for itself. Good on Big Kev for having a go at it though.
Melbourne16 Nov 2004 08:10 am
Melbourne traffic congestion bad for the economy
Road jams: a $3bn bill. (The Age / Dan Silkstone)
Victoria’s transport minister Peter Batchelor has revealed just how costly traffic congestion is to the state economy - $3 billion per year. The article doesn’t say how he calculated this figure, but it does say they expect that figure to triple over the next 20 years if corrective action is not taken.
From the article:
# A leaked draft copy of the original bus plan is highly critical of Melbourne’s bus network. It recommends that orbital bus routes be introduced, fleet size doubled and operating costs increased by $343 million a year.
# A leaked copy of the draft tram plan proposes that there be no major extension of the tram network in the next 10 years.
# Mr Batchelor ruled out several proposals including a rail link between Huntingdale and Rowville, tunnels linking the Eastern Freeway to the Tullamarine Freeway and Western Ring Road, and a tunnel under the Springvale Road-Whitehorse Road intersection.
# The Metropolitan Transport Plan will include a third railway track on the Dandenong line and provide a feasibility study for a light-rail link between Doncaster and the CBD.
I’m not convinced the government has a big picture view of where Melbourne’s transport network should be headed. They seem to be tacking problems as the occur instead of predicting and resolving issues before the occur. The current congestion on freeways and other major routes is a clear indicator of this flawed approach.
Chariot to enter residential VoIP market
Chariot to launch VoIP (The Age / AAP)
Australians will soon have another choice of VoIP provider if Chariot’s VoIP rollout is a success. It looks like an ADSL internet account with Chariot will be required to use the service, but they will also be supplying some hardware to enable you to use your existing phone with VoIP.
It looks like for now at least you would still have to maintain a voice account with Telstra in order to make 000 calls, but at least you wouldn’t have to pay their call rates. It would also leave you with a backup call route if the Chariot service was down for some reason.
Since the ACA dropped the price of a telco licence recently I think we’ll be seeing more ISPs positioning themselves to be able to offer phone services. This should be a bonus for the consumer as it will lead to greater competition in the home phone market, which should result in lower prices.
With a little luck some alternatives to Telstra’s speed-crippled ADSL will start appearing some and Pay TV over the internet will become available too.
Melbourne11 Nov 2004 07:59 am
More on Melbourne traffic congestion
CityLink seeks action on bottlenecks (The Age / Rod Myer)
From the article: “It was hailed as a solution to some of Melbourne’s worst traffic problems. Now, four years after it opened, the CityLink tollway is the focus of a new traffic nightmare - worsening peak-hour congestion on the roads that feed into it.“
Enviroment04 Nov 2004 01:07 pm
Bottled water bad for the environment?
Anger over bottled water (The Scotsman / Russell Jackson).
From the article: “BOTTLED water was criticised by campaigners yesterday for having a damaging impact on the environment.
Friends of the Earth said it was “environmental madness” to transport vast qualities of water often hundreds of miles when essentially the same product was available out of the tap.“
Makes sense when you think about it.