The media loves to jump on a good public transport bashing, even when unfounded. Yesterdays article in The Age ^[1], was about Melbourne’s 59 Combino trams ^[2] having major cracks that needed to be repaired.  So you assume it’s going to be like our train systems, and trains will have to be canceled, people left waiting but…

“The cracks pose no risk to safety,”

“Siemens will fix the trams at no cost to the Government.”

“An increase in maintenance scheduling by Yarra Trams means that no tram services will be cancelled while the trams are being repaired. Two of the 59 trams have already been fixed and a third is under repair.”

So, it won’t affect services, it won’t affect safety and the government doesn’t have to pay for the repairs. Where’s the story?

“Public Transport Users Association president Daniel Bowen said the repairs raised questions about whether the trams should have been bought.”

Sure, but if they are going to fix it for free then who cares? Speaking of Daniel Bowen, he recently tried out the Myki system on one of the buses down in Geelong. Watching the video ^[3] he took and reading some of his observations, it seems that this system still has a long way to go before it is ready to be deployed. The scanning system seems remarkably slow and at a cost of $1.3 billion, you would have thought they would have developed something better.

links:

The Age: Latest model trams found to be cracking up ^[1]

DanielBowen.com: I got a Myki, and it only cost $1.3 billion ^[4]