jeremy.id.au

This time five years ago (17/12/2002), the following letter appeared in The Age newspaper, the author being myself. It is interesting to note that although not a great deal has changed since then (a lot of Melbourne’s public transport is still fairly limited to the hours of 9am to 5pm), they have finally ditched the Summer holiday timetable for the train network. Well hoorah for that, though hopefully they fix the many other problems. Also buses and trams will still run to a limited timetable. The only logical reason for this would be that the operators can’t resist the pressure of drivers seeking to take holiday leave. It’s not like people go out less, just because they’re on holidays. Although public transport workers certainly deserve holidays like the rest of us, their holidays should be staggered so that the system remains functional.

It’s 2002, minister

The comments made by state Transport Minister Peter Batchelor’s spokesman regarding summer holiday timetables (The Age, 14/12) are astounding and lack common sense. The 21st-century lifestyles that people live are not restricted to the hours of 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday and four-week holidays over Christmas-New Year. Furthermore, people no longer go to bed at 8pm and those who do take time off don’t stay home all the time.

The government obviously thinks we are still living in the 1950s. Public transport needs to provide a uniformly high level of service to ensure everyone is catered for.
Jeremy Lunn, Box Hill

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 6:02 pm and is filed under Public Transport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.